Life Support
by Burning 'Til There's Dark Blue
Summary: Sweets had realized years ago that caring about anyone too much had disastrous consequences. He shouldn't have been surprised at what happened to him because of one eccentric blonde he hadn't seen in years until 3 months before. Same timeline as Dark Blue
1. Prologue: See It All

**Disclaimer: **_The only things I own are the plotline, any OCs, and any music by Juniper Volt, seeing as it is my band. Anything else belongs to the respective persons who own the copyrights._

_*~*~*_

_Last time that I saw you it was dark_

_I remember 'cause I think you're pretty_

_You shine brighter, baby, in my heart_

_Than the bright lights of this New York City_

_~See It All – Fink~_

*~*~*

The menagerie of people stood outside the ICU, staring through the over-sanitized glass at the person just a few feet away, watching him struggle to breathe even though he was intubated. Dozens of machines, keeping one person alive. More machines than people.

Advanced Trauma Life Support.

That's what it was called.

Because he had fought back.

He wouldn't let her get hurt.

Someone he hadn't seen in 12 years, up until just a few months ago.

He risked his life for her.

He was _still _risking his life for her.

And she was standing next to them, tears in her eyes, still in shock.

How could one person have been strong enough to hurt another man – albeit a much weaker and younger man – so much that the other man was so severely injured he might never recover?

How could anyone have done this to someone so innocent?

How?

Why?

How had this all started in the first place?

It wasn't fair.

Someone so young.

Someone you think can never get hurt.

Because nobody in their right mind would hurt him.

Someone overlooked so much.

Someone currently lying in a hospital bed.

Struggling to breathe.

Struggling to live.

Fighting.

Just as he had always done.

It wasn't fair.

Nobody really noticed him until now.

Anonymity must be painful.

Especially when all you've ever wanted was to be loved by someone.

To have a family who cared about you.

And he had finally found one.

And now they were watching him die.

Lance Sweets flatlined at 0617, exactly 3 months after meeting the person who inadvertently caused everything to happen.

The person who was crying softly as doctors rushed into the ICU to keep the man alive.

It wasn't fair.

*~*~*

**A/N: **This idea's been bugging me for weeks now, and while I am probably making myself seem really twisted in writing this, especially because I love Sweets - and John Daley, for that matter (I asked if I could have a poster of him for my room, the dorky fangirl that I am), this is one of my more normal stories. Is that pathetic or what? And plus, I really wanted to write something other than NCIS for a change. So here it is.


	2. Chapter 1: Meet Me On Your Best Behavior

_Meet me on your best behavior_

_Meet me at your worst_

_~Meet Me On The Equinox – Death Cab For Cutie~_

*~*~*

_3 Months Earlier - November_

Sweets looked at his watch and cursed himself quietly for not turning his alarm clock on. It was less than half an hour before he was supposed to be at work, and he had to get breakfast and coffee at Starbucks before he could make any sense to anyone, and not fall asleep in the middle of the day.

Not to mention the fact that the early-morning commuters were making it impossibly hard to navigate through the streets of D.C., despite the fact that he was running down the sidewalk, coffee in one hand, hair a mess, jacket over one shoulder, shoes untied, jeans somewhat ripped, shirt wrinkled, and still trying to put his backpack on normally.

He probably looked like a burglar, the way he was racing through the streets, barely avoiding running into old ladies who were shopping at 6 in the morning, teenagers on their way to school, businessmen, and the occasional cop. All whom were walking in pretty much the other direction, which wasn't helping at all. And every five minutes, someone would stop him to ask where he was hurrying off to.

It wasn't his fault that he was running late. He hadn't turned his alarm on the night before. The fact that he didn't fall asleep until midnight, due to the fact that he had watched CSI until about 2300 and then tried to write as much as he could before he fell asleep probably didn't help either, seeing as he had fallen asleep in front of his computer, and hadn't woken up until 15 minutes ago, when he fell out of his chair onto the books and folders next to his desk, causing a huge mess in his living room that he had to clean up before realizing that he only had 5 minutes to get dressed.

As luck would have it, he couldn't find any clean clothes in his dresser, so he had to go through his laundry hamper to try and find anything that didn't smell like it had been under his bed for a week.

Needless to say, there wasn't much to choose from. He ended up wearing an old t-shirt he had bought at a Silverstein concert and a pair of jeans that he was sure he had worn already during the week. Then, of course, he couldn't find his shoes, and had ended up having to crawl under his bed before he finally found them. With a minute left to spare, he had grabbed his jacket and was halfway down the sidewalk before he realized that he could have very easily driven to work.

He had the strange feeling that the rest of his day wasn't going to go well either.

He hated Wednesdays.

He rounded the corner, and just as he thought he was in the clear, he tripped over a cat that decided to run in front of him at that particular second.

He fell down, somehow managing to keep his coffee from spilling, yet scraping both his knees, his elbows, his wrist, and his other hand in the process.

He winced in pain as he sat up, looking at his bleeding hand, trying to figure out what to do, then settled on sitting down and tying his shoes so that he wouldn't trip again.

All this was assuming a psychotic cat didn't run out in front of him and refuse to move again, but what were the chances that would happen again? How many insane, homicidal cats could be in D.C.?

"Are you okay?" someone asked, surprisingly concerned. He looked up to see someone vaguely familiar standing in front of him. "Because if you aren't, I can take you to the hospital. And by that I mean I'll call 911 and _they'll _take you to the hospital. But since you don't seem to have a concussion or some life-threatening injury, I think I have a band-aid or two in my purse. Let me check." The girl sat down next to him on the sidewalk, digging through her purse, and he stared at her, trying to figure out where he knew her.

She was small for her age, which he guessed was 13 or 14, though she could easily have been older. She was paler than he was, with long, strawberry blonde hair and crystalline blue eyes. She was wearing a yellow, furry hooded jacket, a white skirt, a watermelon pink tank top, a white, crocheted beret, and matching flip-flops; in all, she looked like she had a very spontaneous personality. The look of complete focus on her face as she tried to find a band-aid was amusing; it was in such stark contrast to the way she looked.

"Do I know you from somewhere?" He finally asked, stopping the psychological profile. The girl shrugged, not taking her eyes off her purse. She started taking everything out of her purse in her continued search for the band-aids.

"I don't know. My name's Sammy, if that helps. Sammy Clemenza. What's yours?" She looked up at him, holding out her hand.

The name struck a chord; he just couldn't remember where he heard it before.

"Lance Sweets." He said, shaking Sammy's hand. She smiled, then looked back at her purse, taking out a neon green stapler and several receipts. She then stopped her search, looked up as she tried to remember something.

"I think you went to the same school as me." She finally said. "It was a Montessori school, so there weren't that many people. It was for all those kids who were too smart to go to a regular school, because they were moving up grades so quickly."

"In Chicago?"

"Yeah, that's the one." She said, smiling happily. "You were about to graduate when I started there. You were that one genius kid who everyone used to pick on." She pulled out several neon-colored band-aids and handed them to him.

"Yeah… how old were you then?" He asked, wondering what everyone was going to think when he came into work with neon pink and blue bandages on his hand, but decided it was better than risking infection.

"Six." She picked up the receipts and put them back in her purse.

"That's why I couldn't recognize you. You're a lot older, for one thing." He mentally slapped himself for the statement. Of course she was older.

"No, duh, Einstein. I'm seventeen." She rolled her eyes, laughing quietly to herself.

"_Really_?" Sweets was surprised. He picked up the stapler with his uninjured hand and handed it to her.

"Don't give me that '_really' _crap. You look like you should still be in high school." She retorted, smiling.

"I get that a lot." He admitted.

"I bet. And anyway, I'm _almost_ eighteen." She said, as if that somehow made her seem more mature.

"Almost being the key word." He said, handing her another pile of receipts.

Sammy responded by punching him in the arm.

"I'm still smarter than you." She said, calmly.

"I doubt that." There was no way this girl, who carried neon pink band-aids and green staplers around in her purse, was smarter than someone with two doctorates.

"I graduated when I was 12." She stated happily. He bit his lip in mild annoyance.

"…14." He muttered.

"I win." She stood up, holding out her hand to him.

"No you don't. I work for the FBI now." He reached up and Sammy pulled him onto his feet.

"As what?" She asked, looking over her at him with an incredulous look.

"I'm a psychologist." He stated, feeling very intelligent.

"Oh yeah? Well… I actually have no response to that. I haven't graduated college yet." She began walking.

"So I do win?" He jogged to catch up with her.

"I'm still the smarter one." She stated happily, walking faster.

"This is never gonna end, is it?" He asked, wincing slightly.

"Until you prove me wrong, no." She smiled.

"You need to meet my friends." He stated, almost laughing.

"Are they in the mafia?" The look of concern on her face was worrying.

"One of them is an FBI agent and the others are all scientists." He explained, wondering why in the world she would think that his friends were in the mafia when he wasn't even Italian.

"But are they in the mafia?" She asked again, as if being a scientist and being in the mafia weren't mutually exclusive.

"No." He reassured her.

"Then I would like to meet them." She said, walking faster again.

"Okay then." He jogged to catch up with her.

Sweets winced as the action caused the skin on his scraped knees to start bleeding again. Sammy rolled her eyes and handed him several more band-aids. He began walking faster, Sammy jogging to keep up.

"So where is this place?" she asked, almost skipping as she jogged along the sidewalk next to him. Sweets pointed towards the large building in the distance. "The _Jeffersonian?" _she half-shouted in disbelief. "You work at the largest museum in the country?"

"Technically, I work for the FBI." He corrected.

"Your _friends _work at the largest museum in the country?" she stared at him, blue eyes wide, in complete amazement.

"Most of them do." He explained, reminding himself to carry around more band-aids.

"What about the rest?" She asked, looking back and forth between him and the museum.

"The only one who doesn't work at the museum works for the FBI." He said, slowing down due to the pain in his knees.

"Good God, I lose track of you for 11 years and you have the best job in the world." She exclaimed, looking at the museum with the same look of amazement.

"It's not the best job in the world." He shouted, pausing to sit down on a bench and put several more band-aids on his knees.

"Sarcasm." She finally realized.

"I know." He stood up, then jogged to catch up with her. "Just walk, Shorty."

*~*~*

10 minutes and one very angry security guard later, the two of them made their way into the Jeffersonian.

Sweets smiled to himself as he finally stepped inside. Air conditioning felt very good after running for 3 miles and tripping over a wayward cat.

Sammy, on the other hand, was asking him about every single thing she happened to see, and he was trying his best to explain to her that he knew nothing about Ancient China and dinosaurs, but she was so amazed at everything that he finally gave up on trying to explain anything to her. He pulled her out of the way of a random plate glass window standing on a wooden frame, wondering why it was even there in the first place. Not to mention several rubber ducks were lying on the floor in front of the window.

"Can you calm yourself down? These people are my friends, and they're _very _well-respected people." Sweets asked.

"Incoming!" The two of them barely managed to duck out of the way as what looked like a rubber duck flew across the building and bounced off the window.

Sweets glared at Hodgins and Wendell, who were standing next to a homemade catapult, trying very hard to look serious, despite the pile of rubber ducks on the table next to them.

"What the hell are you two doing?" he shouted across the building. The two perpetrators looked at each other, trying to figure out an explanation that wouldn't make the psychologist deem them too insane to work in a museum and have them sent away.

"We're trying to determine how much force it would take for a rubber duck to shatter a window if it's launched from a catapult." Hodgins explained, only to be met with a completely dumbstruck look.

"What is wrong with you two?"

The people in question looked at each other, then both shrugged.

"I thought you said they were well-respected." Sammy whispered, keeping her eyes on the two, who were busy reloading the catapult.

"The people who respect them either don't know them at all, or they know them too well." Sweets explained, pulling Sammy out of the line of fire and onto the forensics platform, glad he at least remembered his ID card as he walked past the scanner.

"And which category are you in?" she asked, still whispering.

"The last one." He whispered back, then raised his voice. "Guys, this is Sammy. I kind of know her from a long time ago and I ran into her on my way to work. Sammy, these two morons are my friends."

Sammy waved, unsure of what to say, other than "Hi."

Knowing that the blonde was going to be asked a dozen questions about stuff that she knew nothing about, Sweets grabbed her arm and dragged her towards Brennan's office, deciding that if she should meet anyone it should be one of the normal people.

He laughed to himself. As if anyone here was normal.

He opened the door, half dragging Sammy in behind him, just to see Brennan staring very intently at an old-looking skull, raising an eyebrow as she tried to figure out where the tissue markers should go.

Sweets cleared his throat and the anthropologist looked up.

"What did I tell you about bringing teenagers into my office, Sweets?" she asked.

"Um, yeah, I almost literally ran into her on the street, and she's my friend from school-"

This was met with skeptical looks from the two women.

"I didn't run into you." Sammy said, looking confused.

"Kind of."

"You fell, and I saw you sitting there, and I had bandages."

"I didn't fall."

"Then what happened?"

"I tripped."

"Over _what?" _

"A cat."

Sammy started laughing hysterically, very entertained at the prospect of the psychologist being attacked by a cat on the street.

Brennan just stared.

"Why were you tripping over a cat?"

"It ran in front of me and I was running. Your people are out there launching rubber ducks across the lab and _I'm _getting laughed at for tripping over a cat?"

"They're doing _what_?"

"I can't explain. It's all very strange."

Brennan said nothing else, just stood up and walked away. Seconds later, angry shouting could be heard, and then two very scared squints rushed by, followed by an angry anthropologist.

"You two are lucky if I don't fire you _both_! What the _hell_ were you thinking? Launching _toys_ across the lab!" Brennan shouted, chasing after her victims.

"They aren't toys, they're rubber ducks!"

"Clean this mess up or I will castrate both of you!"

Sweets looked at his snickering friend, then grabbed her arm and dragged her away.

"We need to find normal people." He explained.

"Your friends are funny."

"You only say that because you don't have to put up with them every single day."

"But they seem nice!" Sammy protested, just as a loud crash resonated through the building. The two of them looked up to see a very angry Brennan standing next to a broken catapult.

"Just keep walking. Don't make eye contact." Sweets muttered, leading her into Angela's office, where the artist was busy painting… he wasn't really sure _what _it was supposed to be a picture of. It looked like a cross between an acid trip and confetti.

"Yeah. I've ran out of normal people to introduce you to." Sweets muttered quietly. Angela spun around, pencil in hand.

"Hey! Who's this?"

"This is Sammy. Can you babysit her while I make sure nobody's getting killed out there?" Sweets didn't wait for an answer, and ran outside. Seconds later, another crash resonated through the building.

"Um… sure." Angela looked at her guest, then held out her paint-covered hand. "Hi. I'm Angela."

"Nice to meet you. I'm Sammy."

There was a sound of shattering glass as a rubber duck suddenly flew through the window, landing just short of the painting.

"Ha! I told you it would work! King of the lab!" Hodgins shouted, audible from the other side of the building.

Angela and Sammy stared at the broken window in shock. The blonde finally turned to face Angela.

"Are they always…?"

"Yeah. You get used to it."

"Um…wow."

"I know."

*~*~*

**A/N: **Longest chapter I have ever wrote. For anything. You people should be proud of me. This chapter is longer than some of my entire stories. And even better, I'm actually doing more research than I normally do. You guys have no idea how much it takes to see if it's possible to trip over a cat. Anyway, review! Please?


	3. Chapter 2: What I Appeared To Say

_**Casting Couch: **__Because I do stuff like this. Sammy's mom and dad are, in my mind, played by Kyra Sedgwick and David Caruso, respectively._

_*~*~*_

_And if I get too close to finding out_

_What I appeared to say_

_The ideas that I once had_

_Always seem to slip away_

_~Neverending Summer – Dayplayer~_

*~*~*

_2 Months, 3 Weeks Earlier- December_

"You walk too fast."

Sweets jumped as Sammy appeared out of nowhere, holding two cups of coffee. She handed one to him and continued to walk next to him, strolling along at her own pace.

"Hello to you too." He said as his breathing returned to normal. "Why did you try and give me a heart attack?"

Sammy handed him one of the cups of coffee.

"I wanted to. It's black coffee. Be careful." She said as Sweets took a sip of the coffee. He swallowed it, his facial expression so completely shocked and disgusted at the flavor that it was priceless.

"What the hell? Why isn't there any sugar in this?" He gasped, still reeling from the taste.

"Because it's black fricking coffee, genius."

"It tastes like crap!"

"It's an acquired taste."

Sweets said nothing more, just handed Sammy the coffee, still suffering from the taste.

"That was the worst thing I've ever tasted!" he finally managed to say. Sammy laughed.

"If that's true then I'm never letting you near my dad's cooking. My mom's, maybe, but definitely not my dad's."

"I don't know your parents."

"Which is only good for you. If you meet them, and they don't like you, then you're screwed. Because they will kill you in some horribly unimaginable way that makes CSI look like Dora The Explorer."

Sweets gulped.

"I think they'd like you, though. It's just my boyfriends that they hate." Sammy continued. "I'll take you to meet them after work. Now go on and yell at people for me." She said, stopping at the sidewalk to the FBI headquarters. Sweets sighed, took the horrible-tasting coffee away from Sammy, and walked in, muttering quietly to himself about crazy blonde Italians and crappy McDonald's coffee.

*~*~*

"Sweets, what is wrong with you today?" Booth asked, staring at the young psychologist as he sat fidgeting in his chair. It was the weekly appointment between him, Booth, and Brennan, and normally _they _were the ones who were acting nervous. Today, however, Sweets could barely sit still, and in the span of 15 minutes had gone from using his chair and desk as an imaginary piano/drum kit, to having to walk around the room, to nearly hyperventilating, and now he was sitting in his chair, fidgeting.

"I don't really see how my personal life is relevant to the subject of the conversation we're _supposed _to be having." He answered, as calmly as possible for someone who looked like they had drank 10 cups of coffee.

"You can't even sit still." Booth explained.

Sweets sighed, realizing there wasn't any way he could get out of this situation.

"If you really want to know… you remember Sammy, right?"

The two others nodded.

"Well, she decided that I should meet her parents this evening, and she said that if her parents don't like me that – and I quote 'they'll probably kill me in some horribly unimaginable way that makes CSI look like Dora The Explorer.'"

Booth sighed in understanding and Brennan started to snicker, despite the fact that it was obvious she had no idea what either show was.

"Is she your girlfriend or something?" Booth asked.

"No… She's just a friend of mine from when I was still in school."

"So basically, from last year?"

"That was uncalled for, Agent Booth."

"I know. Why do you think I said it?"

At that moment, Booth and Brennan's cell phones rang simultaneously, and Sweets sighed in relief as the two got up to leave.

Once he was alone, he leaned back, sighing.

"I'm screwed." He muttered.

*~*~*

"Okay, just remember. Both of my parents are cops. And by that I mean they met each other in the Chicago PD. And now they work here. That should tell you something." Sammy said as Sweets drove rather nervously through the neighborhood. "And if they see you as a threat in any way, though I don't know how they would because you're kind of a wimp – no offense, by the way – you will be dragged to the police station by your feet."

This was met with a worried stare as the now completely freaked out psychologist turned into the long driveway, driving through the trees towards an old, Colonial-era white 2-story house, already decorated for Christmas.

"And please compliment my mom's cooking. She's always paranoid that guests hate her cooking, but nobody ever does, so she needs the compliments." Sammy continued to explain as the two of them got out of the car, slamming the doors shut. Sweets pressed the automatic lock and followed the blonde up the path to the front door.

"And do not under _any_ circumstances mention any Chicago, New York, or Atlanta sports team." They paused at the door. Sammy rang the doorbell, then turned quickly to face Sweets, then quickly fixed his tie and jacket for him, then attempted to fix his hair, but they quickly turned to face the door as Sammy's mom opened the door.

"Hey, baby girl!' Sammy and her mom hugged each other. Her mom looked at Sweets, who was trying very hard to look like he was not completely terrified. "Is this your boyfriend?"

Sammy blushed. "No, momma. This is a friend of mine from a long time ago. Remember I told you about him last week?" she explained, acting very much like a 12-year-old girl bringing home a boy from school for the first time.

"Oh yeah, the doctor kid. Hi." Sammy's mom held out her hand to Sweets, who took it, still trying not to show that he was still freaked out. "I'm Corey Clemenza. You can call me Corey or Mrs. Clemenza. It doesn't matter to me. Come in out of the cold, you two!" Corey ushered the two in, then closed the door.

Sammy and Sweets both looked at each other, Sammy still showing her faint blush and Sweets without any color to his face whatsoever. They turned to look at the living room, which was decorated like something out of a Norman Rockwell painting. The TV – covered in tinsel, obviously – was playing Criminal Minds, and somewhere in the house a radio was playing classic Christmas music. A giant, 12-foot tall tree sat by a window, without ornaments yet but still surrounded by presents. All this 3 weeks before the holiday.

"I may have forgotten to warn you that my mom is a real big fan of the traditional blue-belt type Christmas." Sammy whispered, looking at the decorations. "But I didn't expect this." She muttered once more under her breath. "Momma, are Sarah and the kids coming over this Christmas, 'cuz this is a lot of decorations even for you." Sammy raised her voice so that her mother, who was in the kitchen, apparently looking for drinks, could hear.

Sweets groaned inwardly. This was going to be a long night.

*~*~*

**A/N: **The entire idea of this chapter and the next just entertains me. Sweets, having to meet Sammy's parents, who are cops – my little shout out to The Closer and CSI: Miami – and will shoot him if he seems like a bad person, not to mention the Christmas decorations. And another thing – Sammy is based off, almost completely, my friend Samantha, aside from a few aspects of her personality, and she's practically my sister, which is why her sister is named Sarah. Anyway, this just makes me laugh. I'll have more tomorrow… Review, please?


	4. Chapter 3: I Think We Have An Emergency

_I think we have an emergency._

_~Emergency – Paramore~_

*~*~*

_2 Months, 3 Weeks earlier_

"So Sammy tells me you work for the FBI." Corey said to Sweets, who was trying very hard to look casual as he sat at the ridiculously huge dinner table, which was covered in a white tablecloth and empty plates. Corey had practically kidnapped Sammy 5 minutes after they had arrived; something about "A girl your age needs to learn how to cook fettuccine alfredo already," and "Guests should not have to cook." Then Corey had dragged Sweets into the dining room, practically forced him to sit down in a chair – also a very southern traditional Christmas-y type chair – and for the past 15 minutes he had been sitting there, on the verge of having a panic attack. The only thing keeping him calm was the thought that if somehow he got hurt, Booth and Brennan would not rest until they figured out who had dared to hurt him.

But for now, he was sitting in the chair, trying hard to breathe, his pulse racing.

_Get a hold of yourself, _he mentally scolded himself. _It's not like they'll eviscerate you if you blink weirdly or something._

His mind was not helpful sometimes.

Sammy suddenly snuck out of the kitchen, looking over her shoulder. She walked quietly over to him, leaning next to him, staring at some empty point on the wall.

"Dinner's almost ready. But my dad's gonna be home soon, and my mom just called him to say that you were here, and you're gonna go through their own little interrogation during dinner, so remember what I told you."

"Sammy!" Corey shouted from the kitchen. The blonde winced, having been found out.

"Sorry." She whispered, then raised her voice. "Coming, momma!" and the blonde disappeared, running back into the kitchen.

The kitchen door opened and Sweets' heart started racing again.

"So you're my daughter's boyfriend?" whoever it was asked. Sweets gulped and turned around.

"I'm not her boyfriend, actually. I've just known her for a long time." He managed to say, then relaxed slightly, and stood up, holding his hand out. "Lance Sweets." He said.

"Anthony Clemenza. Call me Tony. Everyone does." Sammy's dad said.

Sweets finally relaxed, sighing quietly.

At that moment, the doors to the kitchen opened and Sammy walked out, holding 4 wine glasses in one hand – a feat of human physiology that he would have to ask Brennan about later – and a bottle of Bordeaux. Somehow, she managed to set all four glasses down and pour wine into each glass without spilling a drop. She then managed to pick up each glass and place one in front of each place. In another second, she was gone.

Sweets pulled out his cell phone, scrolling through each text message for the past year and reading each one.

The door opened and Corey and Sammy walked out, carrying several dishes. Corey was carrying a huge pan of fettuccine alfredo, and Sammy was carrying a bowl of breadsticks in one hand, and in the other salt and pepper shakers. More feats of human physiology. This was going to take an hour for Brennan to explain to him, even though it was only 30 seconds.

The two women set the plates down on the table. Sammy quickly walked over to Sweets, apologizing under her breath, and sat down next to him. Corey sat down next to her husband.

Sweets smiled nervously, unsure of what to do.

*~*~*

_15 Minutes Later_

*~*~*

"So how do you have a doctorate if you're only 18?" Corey asked. Sammy snickered – she was on her 3rd glass of wine and was slightly buzzed, finding humor in everything she heard.

"I'm actually 25." Sweets explained. "I graduated when I was 14 with my high school diploma, and I got my doctorates when I was 22."

"You look like you're Sammy's age. No offense to either of you. Sammy, I think you've had enough wine, sweetie."

Everyone looked towards the blonde, who had started her 4th glass of wine, and was simultaneously trying to eat and hold her wine glass.

"I'm fine." Sammy said, her words slightly slurred. Corey sighed, then took the glass away from her daughter. Sammy was about to protest, but got distracted by the food on her plate – her second helping.

Sweets, on the other hand, had taken one sip of his wine, and was eating his food at a normal, freaked-out human pace. After a moment of silence, he finally broke the silence.

"I like all the decorations in the living room. They're very, uh, festive." He said, the nervousness evident in his voice.

Sammy started snickering again. Corey slapped her daughter's hand, forcing her to fall silent.

"Thank you. It's more decorated than usual, 'cause Sammy's sister is coming over with her husband and little ones for Christmas." Corey explained.

"I still haven't figured out how someone who looks like Sarah does can get married to a guy who looks like Charles." Sammy stated, trying very hard not to slur her words, and ending up sounding more drunk than she actually was.

"Because they are in love." Corey told her daughter, then turned to look at Sweets. "Sammy's sister was the lead singer for a rock band, and that's how she met her husband. And admittedly, their looks are very different."

"He's Australian. She's like a mix of Italian and Scottish and German and all those other ones. Very Aryan, but she has _really_ dark red hair. She looks more Sicilian than Italian. _I _on the other hand…" Sammy lost her train of thought as she noticed her parents and Sweets all staring at her. "What'd I say?"

"What did we tell you about talking about anthropology and genetics and all that stuff at the table?" her father asked. Sammy's facial expression was priceless – a mix of confusion, shock, and misunderstanding.

"I don't understand how I'm not supposed to talk about my college majors when I'm…" she trailed off, rubbing her forehead. "I think I'm drunk." She managed to say.

Sweets shook his head, then grabbed Sammy's free hand.

"I think it's time I get you home." He told her. "Thank you for having me over, Mrs. Clemenza." He said, then dragged the very unbalanced strawberry blonde behind him as he made his way to the front door.

"You're welcome. Any time."

Sweets somehow ended up having to carry Sammy to his car, as she was falling down so much. As he opened the passenger door and helped her in, she looked at him, her blue eyes wide.

"Have I ever told you about the last time I got this drunk?" she slurred.

"No, but if it's anything like this, it's a good thing that I'm taking you home. Where do you live?" he asked, getting into the driver's side of the car.

There was a pause as Sammy struggled to remember.

"I don't remember."

Sweets sighed.

"You can use my guest room, then." He said, and pulled out of the driveway, trying to make sense of Sammy's drunken conversation with him.

_How did someone with a mom like Corey end up so insane? _His mental voice started talking to him again and he shook off the question, unsure of how to answer.

*~*~*

**A/N: **This chapter just entertains me. Sweets is all nervous, Sammy's a freaking ninja in one scene and too drunk to walk in another, and Corey's trying to make her daughter act normally. And Sarah's – as in Sammy's sister – husband is based off my very close friend CP, and her rock band is based off mine.

Christmas related: Unfortunately, they don't sell anything similar to The Poster anywhere, so that rules it out. Though I think my parents are gonna get me a calendar instead.

Review, please.


	5. Chapter 4: Only Walls To Hold Me Here

_'Cause even though you left me here _

_I have nothing left to fear_

_These are only walls that hold me here_

_Hold me here, hold me here_

_The only walls to hold me here._

_~Letters From The Sky – Civil Twilight~_

*~*~*

_2 Months, 2 Weeks earlier_

"Wake up."

The voice snapped Sweets out of his very pleasant dream, which for some reason involved him in front of an audience, playing piano and singing in a band. He couldn't remember the band's name, per se, but he knew the song was good. He jolted awake, falling off the couch, and the illusion faded from a stage and a crowded audience to his office, where Sammy was sitting on the floor, smirking.

"What the… how did you get in here, Sammy?" He asked, trying to wake up.

"I walked in here. It wasn't hard. They recognized me." The blonde explained, smiling. "Now get up."

Sweets obeyed, standing up, nearly falling over due to his exhaustion.

"What time is it?"

"Uh…" Sammy looked at her cell phone. "11:00."

There was a pause as Sweets tried to figure out what that time meant, then, "Crap, they're gonna be here in 15 minutes!"

"Who's gonna be here?"

"Agent Booth and Dr. Brennan. It _is _Thursday, right?"

Sammy nodded.

"This is not good. Um, okay. I need coffee. And my notebook. And my shoes. Why am I not wearing shoes?"

The blonde handed him his notebook and shoes, then was gone as she ran out to get coffee. Sweets sat down on the couch, pulling his shoes on. Sammy ran back in, carrying a cup of coffee, which she handed to Sweets. The blonde then moved around to turn on the computer, and Sweets attempted to fix his hair, which was very messed up due to his nap. He blinked, trying to remember why he was asleep in his office in the first place. He was pretty sure it involved his computer, which Sammy was struggling to turn on. Finally, the blonde gave up, and resorted to spinning around in the chair, playing with a Rubix cube she had found next to the computer.

"Sammy, you have to get out of here before they get here." Sweets said, walking over to the computer and turning it on. It took forever to start up, but he managed to make it look like it had been worked on for a few hours, opening up half a dozen windows and typing in random websites – YouTube, several university websites, Wikipedia, and then he resorted to opening up applications and documents, muttering to himself that iMacs were not supposed to take this long to start up.

Two dozen different windows later, he looked at the clock. 11:13.

Sammy noticed the time too, and she stood up and walked away just as Booth and Brennan entered. Sweets was finally able to sit down, trying very hard to relax.

"So…" he began, unsure of what else to say.

*~*~*

It was late by the time Sweets finally managed to escape to his house, at about 21:00. Needless to say, he was exhausted, and was regretting not having his car fixed sooner. The auto shop was taking as long as they could, not to mention earlier, when he had gone there to make sure they were actually doing their job and not just being lazy, the psychopathic mechanic had freaked out and punched him in the face.

So now he was nursing a black eye as well.

He turned on the TV, trying to ignore the double vision caused by the ice pack over his injured eye, and flipped through the channels until he got to CSI. He had developed a mild obsession with the show over the years that he could only compare to the Twilight craze a couple of years earlier. But 2010 had come and gone, and the majority of people had moved on to their various obsessions. He smiled as he thought about how he hadn't been able to walk into a bookstore the year before without encountering red, black, and white covering everything, or go into Hot Topic to get CDs or T-Shirts or whatever else he wanted without having to dig through the Twilight shirts people had piled on top of the normal clothes, not to mention the giant shelf that took up half the store, covered in movie memorabilia. He was glad that craze was over. He was also glad that 2011, for the most part, had been a normal year so far. Aside from the fact that he had broken up with his girlfriend of almost 3 years when he discovered she had been cheating on him, and the fact that more than once he had considered buying a pet other than the goldfish that currently lived in his kitchen, it was a normal year.

There was a knock on his door and he sighed. There was only a handful of people who would be at his house at this godforsaken hour. Sighing, he stood up and walked to the door, still holding the ice pack over his eye. He opened it to see Sammy, standing there, holding a large cardboard box.

"Oh my God, what happened to your face?" she asked.

"Nice to see you too. I got punched in the face by a psychotic mechanic, if you must know."

"You should sue."

"I'm not going to sue anyone, Sammy."

"Are you gonna let me in or what? It's freezing out here. And I think it's snowing."

Sweets opened the door, and the blonde marched in, still carrying the cardboard box.

"I brought you an early Christmas present, courtesy of my dad." With that, Sammy placed the box down on the couch, reached in with both hands, and pulled out a tiny ball of fluff that Sweets suddenly realized was a tiny gold and white kitten. "He found this little guy in the car of a guy he pulled over for drunk driving. Stupid people, driving around with kittens in their backseat." Sammy handed Sweets the kitten, who mewed quietly.

"Um… does he have a name?" Sweets asked, holding the little kitten with both hands, suddenly terrified that he would hurt it.

"Yes. His name is Joel."

"Why?"

"Because he looked like the cat from The Closer."

"You named him after a fictional character?"

"Yes. And I like how you're counting a cat as a fictional character."

Sweets was dumbstruck, looking from Sammy to the cat, who was very comfortable.

Sammy had walked back over to the box, and was pulling cans of cat food out and trying to hold several dozen at once. She then walked into the kitchen.

"Where do I put these?"

"Sammy, I can't have a cat!"

"Why?" she shouted back.

"Because…well…"

"Because what?"

"Because I don't know if I can take care of a kitten."

Sammy marched out of the kitchen and stood in front of him, standing at her full 5'3".

"Lance," she said, using his first name. He looked her straight in the eye. "You would honestly give up something like this," she took the kitten from him and held it up so that he could look at the tiny creature, "just because you don't know if you can take care of it? That's so stupid. Look at his face."

"Sammy-"

"Look. At. His. Face."

The kitten _was _cute. He sighed. "Fine."

Sammy squealed happily and handed him back the kitten. "Thank you!"

"Sammy, I-"

"Everything you need's in the box. Bye!" And with that, the blonde practically skipped out the door, closing it behind her. Sweets looked at the door, then at Joel, who was purring quietly.

"I know. She freaks me out too." He muttered, then shook his head. "I'm talking to a cat. What's wrong with me?"

He sat down on his couch, then pulled out his cell phone and dialed a familiar number.

"Booth." The voice on the other end of the line said.

"What does it mean when a girl shows up at your house this late at night and gives you a kitten?"

There was only laughter.

"Agent Booth, you are not being helpful."

"Who the hell gave you a cat?" Booth was obviously struggling to keep from laughing.

"Sammy."

There was another explosion of laughter.

"What does it mean?"

"You're the psychologist. You figure it out." And the line went dead.

Sweets frowned, then put his phone on the table and looked at Joel, who had curled up next to him.

"I guess it could be worse." He muttered, petting the kitten and going back to watching CSI.

*~*~*

Sweets walked into the Jeffersonian, trying to make the very small bundle in his arms – he didn't want to risk his kitten freezing to death – look inconspicuous. And thanks to the fact that the security guards all knew him, and the fact that his jacket was purring, they let him in, though he couldn't help but notice that they were laughing. He ignored it, and walked straight to the forensics platform, where the various squints seemed to have all but disappeared off the face of the earth, aside from the only one he was looking for.

"Dr. Hodgins, I need you to take care of this for me." He said, somehow managing to use his key card and hold onto his jacket at once. The entomologist looked at Sweets suspiciously.

"Take care of what?"

"This." Sweets unwrapped his jacket to reveal the sleeping kitten.

Hodgins just laughed.

"Why do you have a cat?"

"Sammy." The only explanation he needed. He looked at Joel once more, then carefully handed the kitten to Hodgins.

"I swear to God if I come back at the end of the day and I find a single thing wrong with Joel, I will kill you."

Hodgins started laughing even harder.

"You named your cat _Joel?"_

"No, Sammy did. After the cat from The Closer. Don't ask me why, because I have no idea whatsoever."

"Why'd she give him to you? You can barely take care of yourself."

"Just take care of the cat for me, alright?" Sweets didn't wait for an answer, but stormed off, putting his jacket on and praying that Joel wouldn't become the subject of some weird experiment. He was also praying that one of the girls would rescue the cat from Hodgins before anything could happen. And judging by the squeals he heard as he left the building, he was right.

*~*~*

"So how's Joel?" Sammy asked, sitting down at his table. He looked around the restaurant, suddenly noticing that everyone was staring at him. Or Sammy, considering she had just walked in dressed like someone out of Flashdance, albeit much more colorful.

"The guys at the Jeffersonian are taking care of him. What's with the outfit?"

"It's a project for my Psychology class."

"You're taking Psychology?"

"Yep. I'm training to be a profiler."

"Nice."

"The project has to do with social norms and stuff like that. And why did you leave your kitten with the crazy people at the museum?"

"Because there was a little incident last year, so nobody can have any animals at the FBI headquarters."

"Little… incident?"

"There were llamas involved."

"What the hell happened?"

"It was a case."

"Do I want to know?"

"No."

At that moment, Sweets' phone rang and he answered.

"Yeah?"

"It's Chris." The person said. He raised an eyebrow. Christine Kellan was an agent who worked with Booth from time to time. He was friends with her, but they rarely spoke on the phone. She was working on the Tarot Killer's case – a homicidal serial killer who believed that he could see the future by killing young women and leaving tarot cards at the scene of the crime.

"Hey. What happened?"

"That bastard killed two agents. He used a sniper rifle. They were at the NCIS headquarters. I don't know if you know what that is. Lizzie's dead."

The phone fell out of his hand. He picked it up and tried to listen.

"You catch the guy?"

"We'll find him. I swear on my life, I'll find him." Chris said.

"I'll be there in a minute." He hung up the phone. "I gotta go." He said, throwing a $20 on the table, then half-running out the door, hoping that driving would clear his head as he tried to sort out his emotions.

*~*~*

It was almost midnight when he finally made his way home. He stared blankly at the TV, where a platinum-blonde late night reporter was talking with fake emotion about the case. He was vaguely aware of the sleeping kitten sitting on his lap.

There was a knock on the door. Sammy.

"It's open." He said. The door opened and he heard footsteps enter, then stop as the door close. Sammy appeared next to him, looking concerned.

"You okay?" she asked. He shook his head and she sat down. There was a deafening silence, then Sammy spoke up.

"That phone call today, that was about one of the agents who was killed by the Tarot Killer?"

He nodded.

"Which one?"

"Lizzie." He was surprised how scratchy his voice sounded.

She nodded.

"She was your friend."

He managed to nod, unaware of the tear that rolled down his cheek until Sammy reached out and brushed it away.

"I miss her." He muttered, losing his voice due to the emotion.

Sammy said nothing.

The two of them sat there, watching the news report, as the reporter pretended to be horrified and saddened by the murder of one of Sweets' few close friends.

"It wasn't fair." Sweets finally spoke up.

Sammy said nothing.

*~*~*

**A/N**: This was very emotional to write. I was laughing at the beginning, then I started crying at the end. If you don't understand the second half, then read my other story, Dark Blue.

Reviews?


	6. Chapter 5: Not To Be Forgotten

_Not to be forgotten but still unforgiven_

_But in the meantime there are those who wanna talk this and that_

_So I suppose that it gets to a point where feelings gotta get hurt_

_And get dirty with the people spreading the dirt_

_~Nobody's Listening – Linkin Park~_

*~*~*

_2 Months, 1 Week earlier_

It was dark outside, the sky clear and soft, with stars bursting through. It was about 27° F, around midnight, and Sweets was sitting on a park bench, without a jacket, ignoring the cold.

He didn't want to go home. If he went home, then he would have to accept the reality that tomorrow, he would have to catch a flight at 05:00 at Ronald Reagan National Airport for a 2 hour flight to Orlando International Airport, then go through all the trouble of finding his luggage and renting a car, then driving to Sanford for a funeral.

He was reluctant to leave the freezing weather. Doing so felt like a surrender, not just to his slowly diminishing sanity, but to Elizabeth's memory.

He hadn't known the girl as well as he knew some other people, namely Brennan, Booth, Sammy, and Chris on the rare opportunity that she actually stopped by to talk about whatever was on her mind. He knew Elizabeth only because when he had first started working at the FBI, she was returning from a particularly horrific case in Greece that involved her boyfriend being killed – by her, nonetheless. She barely spoke about it, and only a year later transferred to a different agency. But he knew more about her than some of the other agents.

And now he couldn't even leave the damn bench to go home and sleep for 2 hours before he would have to leave.

The park bench was becoming very comfortable. That, and he was completely numb.

The only rational part of his mind left was telling him to go home, watch CSI, and play with his cat. He was ignoring that part.

He pulled out his cell phone, thought of who he should be calling this late at night and who he shouldn't. One name flew to the top of his list. He dialed the number, unable to feel his hands.

"_Hello?" _Their voice was calm, such a stark contrast to the way he felt.

"Sammy," he was surprised to hear how raspy his voice sounded, "Can you come get me?"

"_Yeah. Where are you?"_

"Georgetown Waterfront Park."

"_I'll… I'll be there in a minute."_

He hung up the phone, closed his eyes, and sighed, then walked towards the edge of the water and grabbed the guardrail, wincing when his hands hit the cold metal. He leaned as far over as he could, staring into the black water. Thanks to the streetlights, he could see his reflection, see how completely exhausted he looked.

He watched the water strike the concrete wondering where all of it came from. Where all the people who walked by everyday came from. Eventually, he lost track of time altogether, and hoped it could stay that way.

Someone placed a hand on his shoulder and he jumped, yelping, and span around to see a very confused strawberry blonde standing in front of him, holding a tan, oversized jacket that must have been her dad's. She was wearing a thinner, hooded black jacket, with a gray ski cap. She looked at him in confusion, and he said nothing.

"You okay?"

He could only shake his head no. She sighed and handed him the jacket, which he gratefully accepted and put on.

"Come on," she said, grabbing his sleeve and dragging him towards her car. "You're coming with me, and we're going to listen to 40-year-old Beatles music, and if you don't smile, I'm going to force you to listen to _I Am The Walrus _over and over again until you're too confused by the song to be upset by anything, because that song melts your brain. And don't give me the same argument that your anthropologist friend did when I told her about the song. It honestly does melt your brain." She told him, opening the passenger door to her car.

He got in the car, saying nothing.

"Stop being catatonic. Say something already or we're listening to the Walrus song." Sammy ordered.

Sweets didn't say anything. Sammy sighed, then turned on her radio, flipped through the tracks, and then turned the song up to full volume.

"We're listening to the song whether you want to or not. I love this song."

He sighed. It said so much about Sammy's mental state that she was driving through DC at 2 AM with the windows rolled down, blasting _I Am The Walrus _at maximum volume. Her attempt to cheer him up. Granted, he did appreciate it, but it was still strange.

5 minutes and one very strange song later, the two of them pulled up in front of his house. He remained silent as they got out of the car and walked towards the door. The psychologist was still catatonic as Sammy dragged him upstairs, opening doors with her elbow until she found his bedroom, which she practically threw him in before marching downstairs.

Sweets' house wasn't large or expensive, but it was still decent sized. He had inherited the house from his adoptive parents when they had passed away, and it had gradually filled to overflowing with everything he owned. He still had his bedroom decorated the same from when he was a teenager; death metal posters, a huge sound system that took up a corner of his room, a TV with a built in VHS/DVD player, with a Blu-Ray player added later on. His clothes – the ones that he wore outside of work – were scattered all over the room, though everything seemed to avoid the other corner, where there were half a dozen boxes and a very fancy-looking iMac, which was displaying the iTunes album screensaver. This was the first place he gravitated towards, sitting down in front of the screen and going back to his account, opening the familiar programs; Safari, iTunes, Word. He was instantly absorbed in the familiar programs, ignoring Sammy, who had migrated towards the boxes.

"Why are the labels taped over?" She asked, trying to peel off one layer of tape with her fingernail. Sweets finally snapped out of his catatonic state and literally tackled Sammy, pushing her away from the boxes. Sammy pushed him away and stood up, completely freaked out.

"What the _hell?" _she half-shouted, staring down at the psychologist. "You could have just told me not to look in the boxes! You didn't have to freaking tackle me!"

"Sorry." He muttered. "It's… it's a reflex."

"Your reflex is to _tackle _people when they go near those boxes? What the hell is in there that's so damn important that you have to risk giving people a concussion or getting yourself punched in the face, which you're very lucky didn't happen to you?"

"Videotapes. And a lot of papers."

"You tried to kill me over a bunch of VHS tapes."

"Sorry."

"Stop apologizing and let me see what's in the boxes. What does that label say?" The blonde pushed him out of the way and pulled the tape off to reveal the label underneath.

"_Macharotti_,_ N_. _April 1991 to November 1991_." She read out loud. "Macharotti? Isn't that the child abuse case back before I was born?"

"You can't know anything about that. It was 20 years ago." Sweets said, somewhat defensively. Sammy rolled her eyes.

"Are you forgetting that my parents are cops?" Sammy picked up the box at the top of the pile and walked to the bed. Sweets bit his lip and backed towards the door as the blonde opened the box, revealing the contents, which she immediately began pulling out.

Sammy pulled out a file and opened it, spreading out the photos on the bed. Sweets saw her freeze, having seen something she didn't expect.

"Sammy…" he began.

"The kid in these photos…" she muttered quietly.

"Yeah."

"He's… that's you in the photos!" she snapped out of her shock, practically leaping over the bed to confront him. He reflexively stepped back. "Why are you in 20-year-old case photos?" Her blue eyes burned as she glared at him, desperate for some sort of answer.

He bit his lip before speaking.

"I was five when that case started, Sammy. And yeah, that is me in the photos, but you have to watch all the videos to really understand. The media knew more than I did at the time. I haven't looked at any of that stuff in years."

Sammy just glared at him.

"Do whatever you want with that. I have a plane to catch." And he was gone, taking his suitcase with him, leaving Sammy standing in the suddenly freezing bedroom with VHS tapes, papers, and photographs spread out in front of her.

There was a soft purring as Joel walked past, brushing up against her leg. She reached down and picked up the tiny kitten, staring him in the eye.

"What the hell is wrong with him, Joel?"

The kitten mewed in response and Sammy sighed. With one hand, she held the kitten to her chest to keep him warm, and with the other, she started putting the tapes back in the box, unsure of whether the tapes would be in good quality and intending to take them to the one person she knew who could fix them.

*~*~*

_1 Hour Later_

*~*~*

They called it the early bird flight for a reason, though Sweets had to admit that 3 o'clock was ridiculously early in the morning to be thousands of feet in the air, pretending to be interested in the magazine he was reading instead of having to listen to the old lady who was sitting next to him and speaking in rapid-fire Italian.

The woman was yelling at him for ignoring her, and she hadn't yet realized that he knew every word she was saying, which was probably why she had chosen to speak in Italian in the first place.

Though it was getting old, partially because she was insulting his intelligence at the moment. He sighed, and then finally spoke.

"_Signora, posso capirvi. Non dovete gridare_._"_

"_Parlate italiano? Sono spiacente, io non ho realizzato quello.". _She replied sheepishly, her voice heavily accented.

"_È benissimo, realmente." _He replied somewhat apologetically.

"_Così perché è così presto su questo volo?" _the woman asked, trying to be casual.

"_Capo a Florida… per un funerale." _He muttered.

"_Sono spiacente." _She replied, truly apologetic.

The rest of the flight was passed in awkward silence.

*~*~*

Sammy ran through the snow, carrying the box in both hands, with Joel tucked in the inside pocket of her jacket, safe and warm. The security guards at the Jeffersonian didn't check for ID, having seen her so many times already, and instead escorted her inside to the forensics platform.

She wasn't surprised to see the various squints still at work, especially after the Tarot case. What with the various bodies to identify, the paperwork, and the evidence that still needed to be recorded and analyzed, she would have been worried if there wasn't anybody there. But considering the vast amounts of coffee cups scattered across various flat surfaces, they had been at work for a day or so now.

She walked past the various skeletons, mildly concerned that she was unaffected by them, and straight to what Sweets had called "The Weird Techno Room" when explaining it to her. The only occupant of the room was staring blankly at what looked like a hologram projector, showing a digitalization of how who she assumed was one of the victims had died, but after watching it play several times she realized it was the sniper's shot that had killed Elizabeth Michael and the other agent, and she immediately thought of Sweets, thousands of feet in the air, hoping that he wasn't having a breakdown on the plane. Snapping back to reality, she cleared her throat loudly to get the woman's attention.

"Ms. Montenegro?" she asked.

"Hey, Sammy." Angela sounded exhausted. "And you don't have to call me Ms. Montenegro. Call me Angela."

Sammy nodded, then placed the box on the table and started pulling the videotapes out. Angela watched her for a second, then: "Sammy, did your jacket just _meow?" _

Sammy remembered the cat tucked safely away in her jacket and quickly took it off, revealing the kitten, who must have been desperate for cold air. Angela raised an eyebrow, and then shrugged.

"What's with the videotapes?"

"I tried to watch them but they're messed up." She explained, handing the first one to Angela, who read the label.

"_Macharotti, N. Psych Eval #1. _What does the N stand for?"

"I don't know. The box was in Lance's bedroom – I had to take him home from the park, so don't jump to conclusions – and all he would say was that the media knew more than he did. He was five when the case was going on, and the kid in the crime scene photos looks a lot like him."

"Crime scene photos?"

"You have to know more about the case than me. It was before I was born, like 20 years ago."

"I was only 12."

"Still. When I was that age I was studying calculus and watching CSI and Law and Order and I knew about all the crimes that went on because my parents are both cops and you're saying you don't know anything about a case that was probably bigger than the Casey Anthony case when it was revealed?"

"Are there any news footage tapes in there?"

Sammy pulled out half at least half a dozen, each labeled with a month and year – 1991.

"Okay. Give me half an hour and I'll tell you if this is what I'm thinking of."

*~*~*

_30 Minutes Later_

*~*~*

The plane landed, and Sweets found himself being pushed to the front by dozens of tourists.

*~*~*

"Oh my God."

Angela's voice woke Sammy up, causing her to fall off her chair. Joel, who she had been holding and who had also been sleeping, hissed at the rude awakening and dashed away. Seconds later, Hodgins entered, holding the aforementioned feline.

"I'm guessing this is yours." He handed the cat to Sammy, who was standing up after her impromptu meeting with the floor. "What are you two doing?"

"Videotapes. Cold case file. No physical evidence in the box. The only name I have is N. Macharotti."

"The Macharotti case? Haven't heard about that in a while."

"I'd like to remind everyone again that I wasn't born!" Sammy replied.

"It was the biggest child abuse case in over 2 decades. Nathan Macharotti, this little 5-year-old. Police got a 911-call saying they heard gunshots and a child screaming. They came in to find the kid's mother dead and the father with a gun in his hand. They had to shoot the dad, and then when they searched the house they found that the kid had been horribly abused. It was all over the news for months, and then the kid just disappeared. Probably was adopted or went into the witness protection program, because one day it was on the news and the next it wasn't." Hodgins explained. "Kid's mom wasn't even married to the father. She wasn't even an American citizen. She had immigrated from Italy 7 years earlier."

"How come you can remember it and I can't?" Angela asked.

"I was 14. My parents let me watch everything."

"As much as I'd love to see you two argue about TV and memory and that sort of stuff, there's a giant pile of videotapes here that I need to watch before Lance gets back and starts screaming at me for stealing this from him." Sammy stated impatiently.

"Got it." Hodgins and Angela said almost simultaneously. Angela took the tape Sammy was holding, and walked over to the VCR, and put the tape in. A minute later, the slightly worn out footage appeared on the screen.

It appeared to be a therapist's office. The doctor was sitting in a chair next to the kid, who was sitting with one foot on the ground and kicking the other one back and forth. He looked up at the camera, and the 3 people watching nearly froze.

"Oh my God." Angela finally said.

"Is that who I think it is?" Hodgins asked.

"Oh my God."

"You okay?"

There was another pause as Angela tried to recover, then, "_Sweets _is Nathan Macharotti?"

"That's what it looks like."

"Oh my God."

"Alright. You sound like a broken record. Let's get back to the tape." Sammy finally snapped out of her shock and grabbed the remote, pressing play.

Most of the footage was the therapist asking the kid typical psych evaluation questions, allowing Hodgins, Angela, and Sammy time to recover from the shock. Finally, the therapist switched into normal, conversational questions.

"_So I hear that there's a family that's going to adopt you." _The man on the screen said. The kid looked at him with complete confusion in his eyes.

"_Che cosa è una famiglia?" _The little boy asked in Italian. The doctor raised an eyebrow.

"_Nathan, I told you I don't speak Italian."_ The doctor responded.

"_I said, what's a family." _The boy's voice was slightly accented. The doctor sighed, trying to think of an explanation.

"_A family is that group of people who are always there for you even when you least expect it."_

The tape ended.

*~*~*

Sweets walked out of the cemetery, enjoying the warmer Sanford air. It was perfect weather compared to the cold snow back home.

He looked over his shoulder at the black-clothed procession walking away from the newly dug grave, and sighed. So many people, and yet he wondered how many actually knew her.

He was dreading the plane ride home.

*~*~*

_12 Hours Later_

*~*~*

"I don't get it. His plane should be here by now." Sammy said, somewhat to herself, despite the fact that there were several people standing next to her, most of whom she, Angela, and Hodgins had practically kidnapped and dragged to the airport after forcing them to watch the rest of the tapes, which despite the relief from the dreaded Tarot case was still horrific and sad to watch.

"I'm sure he's just getting his luggage." Angela said in an attempt to calm the fidgety blonde down.

"What luggage? He was only there for the day. You don't need luggage for that."

"He'll be here in a second. He's probably in that giant crowd of people that just came."

"What if he can't see the sign?"

Angela sighed, then took the sign with Sweets' name on it and held it up over her head, so that anyone in the crowd in front of her could see it.

A minute later, they finally saw him, walking towards them, staring in shock at the group of people in front of him. He obviously hadn't been expecting anybody, much less the entire Jeffersonian team, plus Sammy and Booth.

"Sammy, what is all this?" he asked once she was within earshot. She shrugged.

"I watched the tapes."

Before Sweets could say anything more, the entire group practically attacked him.

"You're all crazy." He muttered, his voice muffled by the numerous people hugging him.

"_No, siamo la vostra famiglia. Non siamo pazzi." _Sammy responded as the various people let go of him.

*~*~*

**A/N: **This was a long freaking chapter. And I'm using my creative license with Sweets' past, plus the whole speaking Italian thing. I don't know why I came up with that. Anyway, review. And please don't yell at me about my crappy attempt at Italian. I speak Spanish, not Italian.

Translations.

Sweets + Lady on the Plane conversation:

"Ma'am, I can understand you. You don't have to scream."

"You speak Italian? I'm sorry, I didn't realize that."

"It's fine, really."

"So why are you on this flight so early?"

"I'm headed to Florida… for a funeral."

"I'm sorry."

Sammy's last line: "No, we're your family. We aren't crazy."


	7. Chapter 6: This Change

_This change, he won't contain,_

_Slip away, to clear your mind._

_When asked, who made it show,_

_The truth, he gives in to most._

_~The Red - Chevelle~_

*~*~*

_2 Months Earlier_

"I'm cold!" Sammy complained, marching onto the forensics platform, which was decorated very nicely for Christmas, not to mention the giant NORAD Santa tracker website pulled up on one of the monitors – most likely everything was Angela's doing. The skeleton being examined by the various squints even had, for some reason Sammy couldn't discern, a Santa hat –she was wearing a green and red elf hat herself - even though she recognized instantly that the skeleton was that of one of the victims the Tarot killer had murdered. The case was finally winding down, evidence wise at least, with only a handful of bodies left to identify.

"Hello to you too." Hodgins said, not looking up from whatever it was he was looking at – whatever it was, Sammy could smell it from 10 feet away. "I'm guessing you're looking for Sweets."

"He wasn't at his house or his office and I'm really getting freaked out. What if he got attacked by some psychopathic axe murderer or kidnapped by aliens or _both_?"

"Did you consider the fact that you could just call him?"

"When have I ever considered anything? Where is he?"

Without waiting for an answer, the blonde ran off, looking for Sweets in every available place, pushing several people out of her way. Hodgins had to laugh. Sammy could be ridiculously impatient at times, and the weather probably wasn't helping much either.

*~*~*

"THERE YOU ARE!"

Sweets jumped, nearly dropping his coffee as a certain blonde stormed into Starbucks, screaming at the top of her lungs. So much for peace and quiet. He quickly turned off his laptop and turned around to face Sammy, who was shivering despite the jacket she was wearing.

"I have a cell phone, you know."

"I know. I need your iPod speakers." Sammy stated calmly, sitting down in front of him.

"…Why?"

"Because it's Christmas Eve and I have to play the most awesome Christmas song in the world for everyone!" she explained.

"By everyone, you mean…"

"Dr. Brennan, Agent Booth, Angela, Dr. Hodgins, and the rest of them!"

"Brennan doesn't celebrate Christmas. Sorry to tell you that."

"I don't care, I want to play the song and I need iPod speakers if I'm going to do that."

"Last time I let you borrow my iPod speakers you blasted _I Am The Walrus _throughout the entire airport."

"Because it's a good song. And this one's even better!"

"I can't think of any song you would think is better than the walrus song."

"You'll see. Come on!" And with that, she grabbed the sleeve of his jacket and dragged him out of Starbucks, giving him just enough time to grab his coffee and laptop before she dragged him to his car.

"What song is this, exactly?"

"I told you, you'll see."

*~*~*

"Like I said half an hour ago. What song is this?" Sweets asked, jogging to keep up with the blonde as she ran into the Jeffersonian carrying her iPod. He had been stuck carrying the speakers. Sammy just laughed hysterically as she ran up to the forensics platform and waited patiently for someone to let her through. Sweets finally caught up to her just as the security guards walked over and gave her access to the platform. She quickly ran up the stairs, followed by the slightly concerned psychologist.

This wasn't going to end well.

*~*~*

"_Angela!"_

The artist suddenly found herself tackled by the very hyperactive Sammy. Before she had a chance to recover, the blonde was talking at 100 miles an hour.

"I need you to get everyone to the forensics platform because they all have to listen to the most awesome Christmas song in the world and I don't know where anyone is and I know you have their phone numbers on speed dial so can you call them please? I already kidnapped Lance so you don't have to worry about him but just text everyone or something! _PLEASE_?"

"Um… sure. But why do I have to call all of them?"

"Because if the security guards hear this song they'll probably end up kicking me out so I need to make sure everyone hears the song somewhere without security guards and with good acoustics. And then I thought of here. It was a very good idea, if I do say so myself."

"Okay." Angela said, pulling out her phone and typing something on the keyboard as Sammy attempted to get the iPod speakers set up.

Minutes later, the various people coerced into listening to what Sammy would only refer to as "The Song" entered the room, all with confused expressions on their faces.

"Okay." Sammy stated, obviously very excited about whatever it was that she was planning. "First off, since you're all gonna ask, the song is called _Christmas in Hollywood _and it's by Hollywood Undead. And please don't kill me after hearing this."

With that, she pressed play.

*~*~*

Four minutes later, Angela's office had turned into a scene of minor chaos. Booth, Hodgins, Angela, Wendell, and Sammy were all laughing hysterically and struggling to breathe, Brennan was completely confused, Cam was staring in shock at the iPod, and Sweets was very quietly trying to leave the room while trying to hide his face.

Realizing how the situation was going to turn out, he quickly grabbed the still-laughing Sammy by the arm, grabbed his iPod speakers, and dragged both out the door, muttering about psychotic blondes and weird bands with no common sense.

They were in the middle of the building when Sammy decided that she no longer wanted to be dragged across the floor and dug her heels into the ground, causing Sweets to stop in his tracks and spin around.

"WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?!" he shouted. He was vaguely aware of the numerous security guards and squints who had migrated to the edges of the room so that they could watch his shouting match with Sammy, which considering the fact that she hadn't said anything, he was winning. "WHAT DID I TELL YOU ABOUT PISSING EVERYBODY OFF?! I _WORK _WITH THESE PEOPLE, SAMMY! I DON'T EVEN THINK I'LL BE ABLE TO SHOW MY FACE AGAIN FOR A _YEAR _NOW BECAUSE OF THAT STUPID SONG! WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU _THINKING_?!"

The blonde said nothing, and it was obvious she was trying to keep a straight face despite the fact that Sweets was losing his voice shouting.

After a several minute long staring match, Sweets gave up, sighed, muttered incoherently about psychopaths, spun around on his heels, and stormed out of the museum, leaving a dumbstruck team of squints and a rather upset Sammy, who could only stand where she was.

*~*~*

He should have expected the flood of angry phone calls and text messages after he left the museum, especially after his flipping out and screaming at Sammy. He did not, however, expect Angela to resort to speakerphone when she called him, in order for the menagerie of squints and Booth to take turns yelling at him.

He knew when Angela picked up the phone because the majority of the voices suddenly quieted down to a nearly inaudible buzz.

"Are you gonna lecture me too?" he muttered, looking around his office at the empty walls.

"Get back over here right now." Angela ordered, too angry to answer questions.

"Why?"

"Because Sammy has been sitting in my office for the past half hour and she hasn't said anything and she nearly killed Wendell so just get back over here right now and apologize."

"I don't-"

"APOLOGIZE."

Sweets sighed and hung his phone up without saying anything else. Apologizes were never his strong point.

*~*~*

"Sweetie, you need to talk." Angela said to the catatonic blonde in her office.

Silence.

"I'm sure he's just acting like this because he's stressed out."

Silence.

"Alright, he _was _being an asshole, but I'm sure he's back to normal now."

Silence.

"He'll be back to normal by tomorrow."

Silence.

"I'm sure he'll give you a reason as to why he acted the way he did."

Sammy still didn't say anything. Angela sighed.

"I give up. This is between you and him. If everyone here is going to be completely idiotic, I'm not gonna try anymore."

As if on cue, Sweets walked in at that moment, looking a bit nervous – evidently he had run into several of the squints on his way to Angela's office. Neither of them said anything as he walked over to Sammy, who was still sitting where she had been for the past half hour.

"Sammy." He was surprised how quiet his voice was. The blonde made no response. He sighed, then sat down on the table in front of her. She didn't look up. "I'm sorry."

"You're a crappy liar." She finally spoke, her voice quiet even though he was sitting right in front of her.

"I'm not lying."

"And you shouldn't sit on glass coffee tables. They can break really easily, you know. Even though they look strong. I had to replace the one in my living room because I tripped and crashed into it."

"Sammy."

"Yeah?"

"You can't break a table by tripping. Your floor is carpet, anyway. Nothing to trip over."

Sammy only shrugged.

"Okay, this is ridiculous. I'm sorry I yelled at you, now come on." He grabbed her wrist and dragged her out of the office. "We're going to go to my house, and we're going to decorate for Christmas because I am the worst procrastinator in the world and I still don't even have a tree."

It was amazing how fast the blonde forgave him at the prospect of decorating for Christmas, something her mother must have told her when she was younger. Angela shook her head in amazement and walked out of her office to watch Sweets and Sammy practically sprint out of the lab, the blonde struggling to keep up. Watching the two rush out, shouting excitedly to each other, after Sammy hating him only moments earlier, totally forgetting everything that had happened, she had to laugh.

Hodgins walked over, confused. "What just happened?"

Despite the fact that Sweets was 26, and that Sammy just a few weeks away from her 18th birthday, she felt her explanation was sufficient enough to fit them both. "Teenagers."

*~*~*

"You know all the stores are gonna be really crowded right now, don't you? And everything's gonna be ridiculously expensive 'cause it's Christmas Eve?" Sammy half-shouted, jogging alongside Sweets. He nodded.

"That's why we're going to go to one of the few places that won't be crowded right now, where everything's cheap." He explained.

"The Salvation Army?"

He stopped mid-stride, then turned to stare at her.

"What?"

"No, it's not the Salvation Army. What gave you that idea?"

"Well, it's about a quarter mile away."

"Look across the street."

She obliged, then, "Oh. Now I get it. I've never been to Costco, though."

"I'm not gonna stop to debate how seriously messed up that is. Come on!"

The two of them ran across the street, not bothering to wait for the crosswalk, laughing as they ran towards the store.

*~*~*

"Dude, they have an _applesauce _aisle!" Sammy shouted, running up to her companion, who was in charge of decorations and currently had a shopping cart with a 2-foot artificial Christmas tree, miniature ornaments, a wreath, stockings – Sammy's idea, not his, and presents for everyone they knew and for each other, which they were refusing to let the other person see – "But aren't you going to see the receipt?" Sammy had said, guarding her present. "We'll burn the receipt." Sweets explained. Sammy had placed herself in charge of the food, her only explanation being that she was the one who could cook and she didn't trust him in a store where there were entire aisles dedicated to guava juice and apple sauce.

The two of them had been shopping for the past 2 hours. In retrospect, Sweets thought, it would have taken much less time if Sammy didn't have such horrible ADD. She was the only person he knew who had the ability to get distracted by applesauce, industrial-sized packs of flour, olives, and screwdrivers.

It worried him to think about what went on inside her mind. Even as good as he was at psychology, she still confused him. She could be such a strange person, even though she was supposed to be just as if not more intelligent than him.

_Intelligence makes for strange company,_ he thought. _Just look at everyone at the Jeffersonian._

He had to agree with his subconscious on that one. Well-respected scientists should not launch rubber ducks across labs or use the same rubber ducks to attack him when he had climbed up onto the platform to apologize to Sammy.

Come to think of it, that had only been Hodgins and Wendell.

A cell phone ringing to the tune of Chevelle's _The Red_ broke him out of his train of thought. He turned to see Sammy answering her phone, her face lighting up for a brief second before answering, then going dark. Whoever had called, she obviously wasn't expecting or looking forward to.

Her conversation was muted, hushed, and she ended the call with "No, I'm staying at a friend's house - I have a life, you know…" and hanging the phone up. Her body language showed that she was tense after the call, obviously not looking forward to having another one like it anytime soon.

She walked up to him, smiling. "Are you ready to go?"

"Who was that on the phone?"

"My soon-to-be-ex-boyfriend, even though he doesn't know that I'm gonna break up with him and I don't know when or how I _will _break up with him, which is why I've been avoiding him as much as possible."

"Why do you hate him so much?"

"I don't _hate _him, per se."

"Sammy, are you forgetting that I'm basically a lie detector?"

"No. But I don't exactly hate him. I just told you."

"Then why do you _dislike_ him, if that's a better choice of words."

She paused, thinking of her own choice of words.

"Because he's an arrogant, jealous, controlling, hot-tempered, alcoholic junkie."

"And you didn't know all of this before you started dating him?"

"I get distracted by applesauce. I'm not gonna notice stuff like that."

_Oblivion, _the singsong voice in his head replied. "Why didn't you break up with him when you did notice that?"

"For all the reasons mentioned above."

"Sammy."

"Can we just get back to the Christmas shopping?"

"Okay."

In five minutes, now that both of their minds were occupied by other things, they made their way through the check-out line and to Sweets' car, which he had to leave to go pick up when he realized how much they were going to buy.

Talking with each other, distracted by the enormous bags of food and decorations, neither noticed the dark blue '75 Buick Skylark at the edge of the parking lot, or the man leaning against the side of the car, watching the two.

*~*~*

It was surprisingly easy to decorate Sweets' house, and to wrap the various presents they had bought. When it come to baking cookies – another one of Sammy's family traditions, apparently – both had no idea what they were doing. The kitchen and the two wannabe chefs were soon covered in flour, and the counter was covered in eggshells, chocolate chips, sugar, and milk, among other things. Surprisingly, most f it was Sammy's doing. So much for being a better cook.

They still managed to end up with pathetic excuses for cookies, and by the time they were done, they had managed to bake several dozen, half of which they decided to give to their motley crew of friends, and the rest split between them and Santa – Sweets was amazed that a 17-year-old girl could still believe in Santa Claus in modern day civilization, but considering the way she acted, he decided it was best to play along.

With the cookies deemed as gifts wrapped up in aluminum foil and placed in the microwave, and with a plate of cookies and a can of soda (Sammy had decided it was safest if they didn't give Santa milk, in case he was lactose intolerant) set on the dining table, the two of them sat down on the couch with the remainder of the cookies, intent on watching the various Christmas specials currently playing.

*~*~*

It seemed silly to be trying so hard to play along with Sammy's belief in Santa, but her parents obviously had and he didn't want to disappoint her. She had fallen asleep on the couch, and after making sure she was indeed asleep and not acting like a small child would and pretending so that she could stay awake and see Santa for real, he slowly got up, intent on eating the cookies first so that they wouldn't go stale.

The blonde stirred in her sleep as he was eating and he froze mid-bite. But Sammy only muttered something about flying cows, rolled over, and began snoring quietly. He relaxed, quickly ate the rest of the cookies, then took the soda into the kitchen so that he could drink it without the noise of the can opening waking Sammy up.

When that was done, he had to work quickly in order to get all the presents under the tree, then snuck out of the house – again, trying not to make any noise – and drove first to Wal-Mart to buy something that Sammy would deem worthy enough to be made in Santa's workshop, then to his friends' houses to leave their presents on the doorstep. It was almost 5 by the time he finally snuck back in, brushing the snow out of his hair and off his jacket. Exhausted, he left the last-minute gifts under the tree and made himself a cup of coffee, then went to sit down next to Sammy to see her reaction when she woke up.

*~*~*

The excited shouts of "SANTA WAS HERE! AND HE RECYCLES!" greeted Sweets when he woke up. Momentarily disoriented, he jolted awake and looked around, just to see Sammy excitedly ripping open her first present. Yet again helping to play along, he got up and began to open his own present, with Sammy's trademark attempt at wrapping obvious. And while he wasn't sure where the blonde had come up with the idea to wrap a Tamagotchi in a giant box, he had to smile at her attempt. He decided that she didn't have to know that he was the one who bought everything.

He could burn the receipts later.

*~*~*

**A/N: **Merry Christmas/Hannukah/Kwanzaa/Various other holidays celebrated in December! I know Sweets was a tiny bit schizophrenic in this chapter, but what with holidays and everything, he probably just snapped. And my mom did do the Tamagotchi thing one year, in 4th grade. Anyway, I'm gonna enjoy the rest of my Christmas Eve now doing something other than finishing a 3000+ word story chapter in less than 2 days! Adios, and review!


	8. Chapter 7: Calling Moon and Moon

_Calling moon and moon_

_Shoot that big bad hand_

_It'll drag me to your door_

_Now I won't see you no more_

_~Moon and Moon – Bat For Lashes~_

*~*~*

_1 Month, 3 weeks earlier_

Sweets sat in his office, poring over old files he had found buried in his desk, where he probably would have forgotten about them had he not received an email that not only pissed him off more than he thought he was capable of being, but also demanded he review 4-year-old files. He hated when up-and-coming news reporters got it in their heads that they should write about one of the most prominent serial killer cases of the previous decade, and despite the numerous TV specials, books, and media coverage already existing, they wrote a horribly inaccurate article that got the attention of half the Jeffersonian, several lawyers, and most if not all of the DC branch of the FBI, who had turned to the director, who in turn had started yelling at him.

Which was why he was sitting at his desk, trying to read the idiot reporter's article and the dozens of files on the Gormogon case. He wasn't sure how, but the amount of files he needed to read actually seemed to be _growing._

Stupid paperwork. He briefly wondered what it would take to bribe Hodgins into blowing up the piles of documents on his desk. Not much, he thought, and sighed as he tried to read more.

The words were blending together and he was starting to see double by the time someone stormed into his office without knocking, walked around his desk and up to him, grabbed him by the collar, and had already dragged him out of the office by the time he was able to figure out that it was Sammy kidnapping him.

"You know, I was reading really important papers in there." He tried to say as the blonde continued to drag him through the building.

"Good for you." Sammy muttered, practically throwing the psychologist into the elevator when it opened, before following him in and pressing the Ground Floor button until they reached their destination. Before Sweets could attempt to stop her, Sammy grabbed his shirtsleeve and dragged him out of the building.

"Where are we going?" he finally asked, concerned.

"Field trip." She answered, without missing a beat.

"To where?"

"I need you to yell at my boyfriend for me."

"Why?"

"Remember what I said about him being insane?"

"I'm pretty sure you didn't use that word exactly."

"You get the picture. Anyway, he's still insane, but this time he was… I don't know what the word is in English. Is that bad?"

"Uh… that depends. What's your first language?"

"I have two first languages. English and Italian. But I can lose the ability to speak English if my emotions get to extremes, and I have to resort to Italian."

"What are you trying to say?"

"_È__ sulle droghe__." _She said, translating her thoughts into Italian.

"Wow." Sweets muttered, understanding instantly. "But why do you speak Italian when you're angry?"

"It's not just when I'm angry. It's when I'm really upset, or excited, or when I finally realize something that I've been trying to figure out for a while. And I have a tendency to mix my languages and their grammar."

Sweets understood what she meant. He had seen it before, in suspects or victim's family or witnesses who were from different countries, and under extreme stress they would revert back to their native tongue, something he himself had only allowed once or twice since his adoption, which would explain why only a select handful of people knew that he could speak Italian. It was the same as how some people with very normal American accents, if from different regions of the country, could lapse into the regional accent when tired or angry.

"Why, exactly, do you want me to talk to your drug-addict boyfriend?"

"Because if anyone can get through to him, it's a supergenius psychologist."

"I'm not a supergenius."

"How high is your IQ?"

"172."

"While mine is still higher, anything over 160 qualifies as a supergenius in my world."

"Your world also involves CSI being real."

"Well, technically…"

"Just drive, Sammy." He ordered as they got into the car. She nodded, and Sweets instantly regretted the decision to let the psychotic blonde drive.

*~*~*

"This isn't your house." Sweets said as they got out of the car.

The building in question was small, a 1-story house with a chain link fence, messy yard with a barking dog, and a screen door instead of a wooden one. Sammy ignored this and opened the gate, walking right past the dog, whom she simply had to glare at to silence. Sweets somehow ended up walking in front of her, protecting her.

Sammy opened the door and they walked into the house, which was basically a main room, an entry/hallway, and several dark rooms connected to the hallway. He turned around to make sure she was still behind him, only to find that she was now holding a handgun.

"Where did you get that?" he half-hissed-half-whispered.

"What have I told you a million times about my parents?" she answered. Sweets sighed and took the gun from her.

There was a crash from an unseen room. Sweets jumped, and Sammy just sighed.

The door flew open and a man stormed out. Sweets gulped. This was obviously Sammy's boyfriend.

"His name is Jason O'Neill." Sammy whispered quietly. Sweets didn't take his eyes off the man, who was about 6'5" and 200 pounds, mostly muscle. Judging from the fact that his pupils were the size of saucers, his eyes still bloodshot, and the fact that he was breathing heavily, he was still enjoying the effects of whatever drug he was on.

"You're the fucking bastard who took Sammy away from me." Jason stated, his voice cracking due to his state.

"Jason, I didn't take her from you. I'm from the FBI."

The man just stared at him, uncomprehending.

"What are you on?"

Jason said nothing, and reached into his pocket, pulling out a knife.

"Jason, I'm not an agent, I'm a psychologist, but you still need to talk to me."

The drug-crazed man stared at the two for a moment, then visibly gave up.

"Fine. Take the psycho bitch. It's not like I need that bitch around here." With that, the junkie turned around and walked back into the dark room. Seconds later, a trash bag filled with clothes and other miscellaneous items flew at Sweets, who caught it. Sammy quickly took it from him.

"That's my stuff."

"But you don't live here." Sweets retorted, quickly rushing out of the house before the junkie changed his mind about Sammy.

"Since a couple weeks ago, I technically do."

"What about your apartment?"

"Eh. I rented by the week. I paid $450 for a 400 square foot, 3-room apartment in the middle of downtown. It was cheaper here." Sammy said, tossing her bag of clothes into the backseat of her car, then got into the driver's seat. Sweets looked once more at the house before getting into the car himself.

"Why don't you just stay with your parents?" He finally asked as they drove away.

"I'm an emancipated minor. Technically, I'm intelligent enough and I make enough money in my job to live on my own. I haven't lived with my parents since the week I turned 16. I moved out because my psychopath sister-"

"I thought you said she was married."

"She was the lead singer of a hard rock band specializing in music very similar to Fuel and Evanescence, and she specializes in the paranormal. Parapsychology, teleportation, lycanthropy, telekinesis, all the stuff they show on Fringe and Dollhouse; you name it, she can tell you about it. We're polar opposites. And she comes by my parents' house every other week to ask how to take care of her 2 kids. She has another one on the way. I dealt with her for 16 years. I couldn't handle any more time with her."

"How old is she?"

"24. She's younger than you but I swear, she's not human."

"What do you mean?"

"She looks nothing like me, she's freakishly strong for someone who's only 5'6" and 100 pounds, she knows what you're thinking even when _you_ don't know, and she appears out of nowhere right next to you."

"Creepy. But where are you going to live?"

"I don't know. Hotel?"

"You can't get a hotel until you're 18."

"I don't find that fair."

"You don't find anything fair, Sammy."

"Just drop me off at the Jeffersonian. I'll sleep there. And Dr. Brennan gave me one of those little pass card things so I don't have to steal yours all the time, so I can stay there."

"You can't sleep at the museum!"

"It beats sleeping in your office. And what's wrong with sleeping there?"

"Aside from the hundreds of dead bodies, the crazy scientists performing experiments on anything made of atoms, the weird interns, and the weirdness of the entire place?"

"Are you forgetting that I spend most of my free time watching CSI, Criminal Minds, Fringe, Monk, and Law and Order, and that I can kill you and cover up evidence so well that not even your pals at the Jeffersonian could find a grain of sand linking me to your murder?"

Sweets gulped. The girl was psycho. Seriously, literally, completely psycho.

*~*~*

They walked into the museum, Sammy still carrying her giant garbage bag filled with clothes and whatnot, just in time to find the future Mythbusters attempting to build yet another catapult, though the ammunition this time seemed to be watermelons aimed at a much better target – a sliding glass door, this time with an inflatable pool surrounding it in order to catch any glass or watermelons.

Sweets had to laugh at the blatant disregard for Brennan's previous death threats if they tried anything even remotely similar to the Rubber Duck Incident ever again. He looked at Sammy just to make sure she hadn't wandered off somewhere in the line of fire, and was happy to find that she was still standing right next to him with her trash bag suitcase.

Hodgins was the first to notice the two. "Did you kill someone?"

"Wha-NO! What gave you _that_ idea?" Sweets shouted, looking at the entomologist in shock.

"Well, the trash bag is certainly large enough to have a body or two stuffed in it."

Sammy snickered. Sweets just rolled his eyes and dragged the blonde along behind him, straight to their usual destination when he needed her to stay somewhere without getting in trouble, which he quickly learned happened a lot.

Luckily for both of them, Angela was still in her office, despite the fact that it was nearing 19:00. The artist barely reacted to their entrance, having grown accustomed to it over the past month. She did, however, react when Sammy announced loudly, "My boyfriend broke up with me – at least I think he did – and kicked me out of the house and I have nowhere to sleep. Can I use your office?"

Sweets knew that Angela was regretting the decision to take a sip of coffee at that moment, considering how quickly she spat it out all over her keyboard.

After letting the artist recover for a second, Sammy finally spoke up. "Well?"

"Sweetie, you can't use my office as a house."

"Why not?"

"Because… Why is it so hard to explain? And why don't you have anywhere else to stay?"

"Because," Sweets spoke up. "My guest bedroom and the majority of my house is currently filled with hundreds of newspapers and case files because some impotent reporter couldn't take a hint and shut up when I punched him in the face."

"Whoa. Hold up. You punched a guy in the face?"

"Yeah."

"Why?"

"He wrote this really ridiculous article on the Gormogon case for no reason whatsoever and kept saying that everyone who worked the case was retarded or oblivious and said that Zack got what was coming to him and that he was a worse person than Charles Manson. So I tracked him down and punched him in the face."

"Please tell me that's not all you did."

"I'm going to plead the 5th. All I'm going to say is that there is a Toyota Camry driving around somewhere with pink bunnies spray painted on the doors."

"But you can't paint. Your handwriting looks like a dyslexic ostrich's."

"Thanks for that. And Sammy was the one who painted the bunnies on his car."

Angela turned to the blonde, who was snickering at the memory. "How did you get involved with this?"

"I hate the media. I'll take any excuse to paint reporters' cars. And to tell the truth, they weren't really bunnies."

"Then what were they?"

"Uniguins."

There was a pause as Sweets and Angela both stared at Sammy in complete shock.

"What is a _uniguin?"_

"An imaginary creature that I came up with after taking too much Advil. They're a cross between a unicorn and a penguin, and they look like narwhals. Oh, and I painted a giraffe too."

"That's just disturbing. Anyway, you can't sleep here, Sammy. The crazy people come out at night." Angela said. Sweets raised an eyebrow.

"So the people who work here during the day are _normal?"_

"You know what I mean." Angela retorted, then turned to Sammy. "You can sleep at my apartment. I can make room."

Nobody really expected Sammy to tackle Angela in a bone-crushing hug, shouting "Thank you!" and speaking so fast that nobody could understand her – albeit the fact that she had subconsciously switched her languages again.

Angela was unsure of what to do, considering a 5'3" blonde was now hanging off of her neck.

"Yeah. I'm gonna leave now." Sweets finally said, before disappearing, another idea regarding the reporter and the case suddenly occurring to him.

He made sure he was safely in his car, with the doors locked and the windows rolled up before he pulled out his phone and dialed a number he hadn't called in over 2 years.

"_This is Caroline Julian." _ The voice on the other end replied. He smiled, glad he had called the right number.

"It's Dr. Sweets. I was rereading the Gormogon files, and I noticed a couple inconsistencies with Zack's report on the case, and I think you should know what he said to me 3 years ago."

*~*~*

**A/N: **And so, with an amazing 2 chapters in 2 days, I leave you with this Christmas present – one of the best cliffhangers I've ever managed to write, which is kind of sad. Anyway, review while I try and finish a few more chapters! Please?


	9. Chapter 8: Gonna Be Your Savior

**A/N: **Here's where things start to get crazy…

*~*~*

_What you got_

_What you want_

_What you need_

_Gonna be your savior_

_Everything's gonna crash and break_

_But I know, yeah, I know._

_~Savior – Skillet~_

*~*~*

_1 Month, 2 Weeks earlier – January 2012_

"You want me to do _what?" _Sammy screeched, shouting at the psychologist who was currently sitting in front of her with a pleading look on his face, next to boxes of security tapes.

"I don't have photographic memory like you do. I need you to watch all of these in chronological order and see if there is any time at all that Zack isn't accounted for."

"Who?"

Sweets handed Sammy the photo and she raised an eyebrow.

"Isn't this the guy arrested in the Gormogon case a few years ago?"

"Yes. You remember that?"

"You said yourself I have photographic memory."

"Good point. Anyway, and I need to see if any of these people," he handed her several more pictures "have any time unaccounted for."

"This is what, a year's worth of tapes?"

"This is only the first month."

"_Voi è un deficiente completo, voi conosce quello?" _Sammy asked, very obviously annoyed but not wanting to insult Sweets in front of everyone else in the café.

"Yeah, I know. But can you do it for me?"

She looked at him, considering both her previous statement and what the psychologist had said.

"_Approvazione_."

"_Grazie." _Sweets replied, switching to Italian due to the fact that he was growing tired of speaking two different languages. That was something only Sammy seemed to have mastered. With that, the two of them stood up, each carrying 2 boxes each, and walked out of the café.

"Why do you want me to do this 4 years after the case?"

"I realized something last week when I was rereading the case files because of that stupid reporter – all the times Zack said he was somewhere else, someone else could account for him – usually me, Dr. Brennan, or Dr. Hodgins."

"And you think he's innocent."

"I know he's innocent. I've been his therapist for the past 4 years."

"Whoa – _therapist?"_

"He was institutionalized."

"I can't remember what that means in English."

"_Istituzionalizzato__." _He translated quickly.

"Oh. Well, I guess it makes sense."

"He pleaded guilty and he was declared _non compos mentis."_

"And you think he's not insane."

"If anything, the kid has Asperger's."

"I don't know what that is."

"It's a condition on the autism spectrum. If you know Zack as well as my friends and I do, then you know he has pretty much all the characteristics."

"Since I don't know what you're talking about, I'll just read about it _after _stealing your TV to watch all of these tapes."

"But aren't you staying at Angela's?"

"Angela doesn't have a 53" 1080p HDTV. You do."

"I'm not sure whether you mean that as a compliment or not."

"This is somewhat out of the blue, but in 1000 years when English is a dead language and everyone speaks Chinese or Italian or Spanish, they're gonna have a really hard time trying to figure out how to say everything."

"Agreed."

*~*~*

Several hours after dropping Sammy and the boxes off at his house, Sweets made his way back to his house with another load of boxes and a bag of fast food Chipotle. When he entered, he did not expect Sammy to be on the last tape, fast-forwarding through everything, with a confused expression on her face.

"Sammy?"

"He's always accounted for. _Always. _There's no way he could have done half the stuff he said he did because it would require driving, which from what I've seen he can't do, and the other half requires social knowledge that he doesn't have. He's protecting someone." Sammy stated.

"Is there anyone who's unaccounted for at all, at any time?"

Sammy held up one of the photos. It took Sweets longer than necessary to remember who it was – Zack's girlfriend at the time of the arrest, known to everyone as "Naomi from Paleontology."

"Her name is Naomi something-or-other; I don't know how to pronounce it, it's French. From what I've read about her; her official file, her psychological profile, she has an 87.2% chance of being Gormogon's apprentice, _ridiculously_ higher chances than Zack."

"What are his chances?"

"From what I've learned in the past 3½ hours of watching these tapes, 7.4% - slim to none. He's protecting her. And how do you pronounce this last name?"

"Dubois." He said, pronouncing it correctly.

"Since when do you speak French?"

"I don't – I just know how to pronounce the last names."

"Not gonna argue. Anyway, we have to track down this Naomi Dubois girl. You know cannibalism causes a proxy disease that makes it impossible to stop. And she's smart enough to trick anyone on the case – smart enough to trick _Zack_ – that he was the guilty one when in fact we have evidence proving he is just really gullible and that he's innocent!" With that, Sammy began speaking rapid Italian due to her excitement. While continuing to ramble, she ran to the VCR, grabbed the tape, then attempted to pick up all the boxes at once so that she could run to the car.

*~*~*

Booth did not expect the two people who ran into his office to even be there. He did not expect one of them to be speaking so quickly in Italian that the other would have to translate. He certainly didn't expect when they finally got to the point and shouted almost simultaneously, one in Italian and one in English, "ZACK IS INNOCENT!"

"Can you two please just stick to one language? Preferably one I can _speak?"_

"_Ugualmente sono eccitato per parlare inglese ora." _ Sammy managed to calm down, still speaking in Italian.

"She says she's too excited to speak English right now." Sweets translated.

"_Ho guardato i mesi dei nastri di sicurezza ed ho rendo conto ere che c'è modo non fisico o psicologico che Zack potrebbe commettere c'è ne dei crimini ed è realmente innocente."_

"She says that she was watching months of security tapes and she realized that there is no physical or psychological way that Zack could have committed any of the crimes and he is actually innocent."

"And you expect me to believe that a crazy blonde who can't even speak English managed to figure out something that nobody else did." Booth said, speaking in monotone.

"She's studying physiology and genetics. She can tell you if people can do something as accurately as Dr. Brennan can name every bone in the human body. And besides, all of Zack's time was accounted for. We checked. Well, Sammy did."

"_È innocente."_

"I don't think I have to translate that."

There was a pause as Booth considered what the two had just told him.

"Then who's guilty?" he finally asked.

"Naomi Dubois." The two said simultaneously.

"And you have proof."

"Yes."

"_S__ì_."

"Then go talk to Caroline, not me."

"We already did and she told us to talk to you because you're the only one who can arrest the French chick-" Sammy finally switched back to English.

"Naomi Dubois." Sweets corrected.

"Right, and we don't know if she's figured out that we know she did it so we need you to storm the museum!"

"What'd I tell you? We aren't storming the museum."

"Please?"

"No! No storming anywhere."

"But we can't arrest people without storming places!"

"WE ARE NOT STORMING THE MUSEUM!"

"Killjoy."

Booth looked at the two in concern.

"Fine. We'll go interrogate her. But I don't want a bunch of teenagers yelling at her. And by teenagers I mean you two."

"But I'm turning 18 next week!" Sammy protested.

"I'm 26. How am I a teenager?" Sweets added.

"Just come on." Booth said, taking his gun and badge out of his desk and walking out of the office, shadowed by the two "teenagers" as if they were baby ducks.

*~*~*

"All right, you two stay out here." Booth said as the three arrived outside the Paleontology department. "We don't want anybody getting hurt."

"But I have a gun!" Sammy protested, pulling the handgun out of her purse. Booth raised an eyebrow at the fact that the teenager was walking around with a gun in her purse.

"My parents are cops. They pulled a few strings to let me have this."

"O…Kay." Booth said, turning to face the psychologist. "Sweets, I'm guessing you don't have- never mind." Sweets had his own handgun. Booth sighed, seriously considering filing pleas to make sure the two "teenagers" following him weren't able to have guns, but then realized that Sweets needed one for his job and Sammy would probably never leave him alone ever again if he took her gun away.

Making sure that Sweets and Sammy were ready to shoot if necessary, hopefully not at him, he nodded, and then opened the door.

Several of the other squints disappeared the moment the door opened, leaving their target standing alone, looking at them with a smirk on her face.

"So you figured it out, huh?" she said, venom in her tone, her hands behind her back.

"I didn't figure it out, these two did." Booth said, looking pointedly at Sweets and Sammy. All three were tense, waiting for any move to be made.

Naomi pulled a gun out from behind her back and fired at Sammy, missing completely. Before she could fire again, 3 different guns went off, hitting Naomi in the head, shoulder, and chest. The woman fell backwards, the gun still in her hand.

Booth looked back at the two people behind him, both who were smiling sheepishly.

"None of you had to shoot her."

"Reflex." Sammy explained as the security guards began to rush in. "You know, for a cannibalistic serial killer's apprentice, she was a horrible shot."

*~*~*

"So they found all the evidence they needed to convict Naomi even though she's dead and to release Zack?" Sweets asked. He and Sammy were sitting in the back of Booth's van, which was currently parked in front of the mental institution, though they weren't allowed to leave; the words "so much trouble", "grounded", "stay here" and "you two are not allowed to solve a case on your own ever again; that's me and Bones' job" had been used more than once.

Sammy nodded. "The skeleton she had in her house probably convinced them."

"Brings a new meaning to 'skeleton in your closet', don't you think?"

"Yeah."

They knew there was a change when the news vans started pulling up, and several reporters suddenly turned into 15, including one driving a certain Toyota Camry. Sweets and Sammy both hid their face upon seeing the reporter in question.

Phone calls had been made, apparently.

"We're never gonna get out of here." Sweets whispered. "They aren't gonna let Zack and Booth get through."

"We need to get closer to the entrance." Sammy said.

"How are we gonna do that?"

*~*~*

"Sammy, what did you tell them? They parted like the Red Sea!"

"I showed them my gun and told them we were from the FBI." Sammy explained, driving the van as close as she could to the entrance and putting it into park. The two of them got out of the van and were suddenly assaulted with questions.

"Is it true that you're the ones who solved the Gormogon case?" one of the reporters asked, getting too close to Sammy for both hers and Sweets' comfort.

"Yes. Dr. Sweets, knowing that I'm studying physiology, had me study the tapes to see both if any time was unaccounted for, for anybody, and to see if it was physically and psychologically possible for Dr. Addy to do any of the things he was accused of doing."

"Is it also true that you're only 18?" another asked. Sammy nodded.

"In truth, I'm a week away from turning 18, but I went to a Montessori school and graduated at 12 years old. I'm already in possession of a Bachelor of Science degree." She said, afraid to use the abbreviation for the degree due to fear that she would be called out by someone who didn't understand what it meant.

"Since you're already in possession of this degree, out of curiosity, what is your IQ?" the same reporter asked.

"195." Sammy answered, without missing a beat. Sweets watched as several of the reporters blanched at this revelation that the teenage girl standing in front of them was light years ahead of them education wise.

"Why did Dr. Sweets pick you, out of all people, to assist with this case?" the first reporter asked.

"Dr. Sweets asked me to look into the case as a neutral party." Sammy explained.

The door to the institution suddenly opened. Booth walked out, leading Zack by his arm.

There was a sudden storm of questions from the reporters. Sammy and Sweets had enough common sense to stand in front of the agent and the scientist, therefore preventing any questions from being asked.

"Move along, people." Sammy ordered. "Move along." Nobody obeyed, and the blonde pulled her gun out of her purse, aimed at the sky, and fired. There was silence.

"Move along!" she commanded. The group parted again, allowing the four people to make their way to the van. Booth ended up in the driver's seat, Sammy rode shotgun, and Sweets and Zack were stuck in the backseat.

"That was extremely disturbing." Zack finally said as they drove away from the crowd.

Sweets looked at the anthropologist sitting next to him, finally noticing how different Zack looked since he was institutionalized. He was ridiculously pale, making even Sammy look tan. His hair had gotten long, but due to the fact that it was already naturally wavy, had grown to look like Charles Manson's. He was squinting in the sunlight that made its way into the car, blinking every five seconds. After a long silence, Zack finally spoke up.

"So you discovered Naomi's involvement." He almost whispered. Sweets nodded.

"She tried to shoot me." Sammy stated bluntly.

"It wasn't my original plan to protect her for so long. When she came to me telling me what she had done, I was going to tell Agent Booth." Zack seemed almost nervous to speak. "But she threatened to kill me if I didn't take the blame for her."

"And you believed her." Sweets finished the unspoken thought.

"Naomi is deceptively strong."

"She's dead." Sammy said, yet again very bluntly. "I shot her in the chest. Agent Booth and Lance shot her too but I was the one who fired my gun first."

"She had a skeleton in her bedroom." Booth added. "It's at the Jeffersonian right now."

"Does anyone else know what we did?" Sammy suddenly asked. "Or is it just us?"

"Just think of it as a late Christmas present to everyone, Sammy." Sweets explained. The blonde nodded in understanding.

*~*~*

They pulled up outside the Medico-Legal lab, trying to remain as inconspicuous as possible. The security guards all raised an eyebrow as Booth, Sweets, and Sammy tried very hard to keep Zack from being seen. Eventually, they made their way inside, stepping lightly to keep from being heard by the squints on the Forensics platform.

Sammy finally decided they were within earshot.

"Merry late Christmas!" she shouted. Everyone looked up to see the four people standing, all rather nervous except for Sammy, in front of the platform.

"Oh. My. God." Angela said, staring at the one person they hadn't expected to see. "What did you people do?"

"Sammy's incredibly intelligent for someone her age." Zack explained, as if he had never left. "She was able to figure out that Naomi was the real apprentice and that I was the one who took the blame. Judging by the amount of reporters who kept asking us questions, this is going to be on the news later today."

Zack suddenly found himself tackled by several very excited people, all who were talking faster than anybody could understand.

"My work here is done. For today." Sammy said, grinning, before grabbing Sweets' hand and dragging him away from the crowd.

"Good job." Sweets said, as the two of them walked out of the Jeffersonian.

*~*~*

**A/N: **I love not having writer's block anymore. And I decided that Zack really, _really _needed to be in the story later, so I came up with the most logical explanation I had for him to be released. Anyway, I'm gonna try and write even more. Who knows, I might even finish this story by next week if I try. In other news, this is officially the longest story I've written as of yet. And please excuse my horrific Italian. I probably mistranslated so much. Like I said earlier; I speak Spanish, not Italian.

I think that since I was nice enough to put Zack in the story, I should get at least 1 review. Please?


	10. Chapter 9: Feel The Pressure Caving In

_Feel the pressure caving in_

_Just a prelude to the end_

_I couldn't stop it if I tried_

_Happens time and time again_

_Human nature carries on_

_We aren't lovers _

_We are friends._

_~Caveman – Dayplayer~_

*~*~*

_1 Month, 1 Week earlier_

"Why does it have to be so cold outside?"

Sammy was currently sitting in Sweets' office chair, spinning around and trying to read as she did so. Sweets, on the other hand, was lying down on his couch, attempting to sleep but failing.

The FBI building was currently the victim of a city-wide power failure, which had resulted when one of the power stations was struck by lightning – Sweets had to wonder what the chances of that were – and failed, therefore causing a cascade failure. In the dead of winter, a city-wide power failure was probably one of the worst things that could happen, and the two had decided that since warm air rises, they should stay in Sweets' office on the top floor of the building instead of venturing to other floors and risking hypothermia.

Unfortunately for them, everyone else had the same idea, and the rest of their floor was buzzing with noise.

The power failure had also caused the cell phones to stop working, along with any phone that relied on built-in caller ID. Several agents had resorted to using phones from earlier decades, but the lack of technology in the building was causing mass chaos.

He wondered how bad it was at the Jeffersonian, and then shuddered at the thought of the squints being subjected to freezing temperatures and no electricity, which meant no security cameras – inevitable mass destruction.

He hoped they would have enough common sense to stay away from the museum this time.

As if they had all read his mind, the various squints and Booth walked into his office at that moment, dressed in winter clothes. He jumped off the couch, trying to figure out what he was going to do with the 7 people who had now claimed his office as their own.

"Well, normally I'd be really mad about all of you marching in here at once, but you know what? I've given up. You people are impossible to deal with. _Completamente impossibile.__" _Sweets said, switching to Italian with his last statement.

"We couldn't stay at the Jeffersonian. With the heater not on, the temperatures would have dropped below freezing and everyone would most likely develop some form of hypothermia, which given the fact that the hospitals currently are running on emergency power would just be taxing to them, and since your office is at the top floor of a building still on emergency power, we made a group decision to come here." Brennan stated calmly.

"And you expect this to be any more entertaining than a freezing cold lab filled with dead bodies?"

"Yes."

"I can't help you. If you didn't notice, I was trying to _sleep _before my office was raided by you people."

"If you were trying to sleep then why is Sammy here?"

"She doesn't like being alone. She can handle not talking, but she can't be alone or else she goes crazy and tries to _burn down my kitchen." _Sweets said the last part of his statement in a very accusatory tone, directed towards the smiling blonde in the office chair.

"I didn't _try _to burn it down. Oil is just very flammable." Sammy defended herself, smiling too much to be considered innocent.

"You poured it on the floor!"

"I put out the fire."

"After half the floor was destroyed!"

"I cleaned it up."

"No, you didn't. You hid it with a rug."

"I consider that cleaning."

"Just like you consider getting rid of all the furniture in my living room and moving it to the garage creating storage space for the hundreds of boxes you put there?"

"That was _your _idea, not mine!"

"I was being sarcastic when I said that we should get rid of the furniture to make space for the boxes!"

"I'm not the one who put a hundred boxes in my house!"

"I told you, I needed them there because I hadn't rented a storage room yet!"

"Why didn't you just rent a storage room first before putting so many boxes in your house?"

"Because I don't know where any are!"

"_No, sapere esattamente dove sono, voi idiota__!" _Sammy retorted, and with that their argument switched languages, their shouting growing increasingly louder, leaving everyone else staring at the two in a mixture of shock and amusement – needless to say who had what expression on their face.

"Okay, this is just hilarious." Angela said, watching as Sammy and Sweets got within inches of each other, with Sammy standing on the chair so that she could be eye level with the psychologist, in order to shout more loudly.

"I don't get it. Why is it hilarious?" Brennan asked, completely confused.

"They're acting like an old married couple, Bones. That's why." Booth explained.

"I was thinking more along the lines of teenagers." Angela added.

"_Dating _teenagers." Booth added. This snapped the two in question out of their bilingual argument.

"We aren't dating." They said simultaneously.

"Sure." Angela said sarcastically. "What with the way you never shut up about Sweets when we're at home, nobody would think that." The last statement was directed towards Sammy, who turned a deep crimson.

"I think they'd make a cute couple." Booth added. Sammy was turning an even darker crimson, which until seconds ago didn't even seem physically possible.

"She's blushing." Angela stated, smiling.

"I'm not blushing." Sammy retorted.

"Yes you are."

Sammy hid her face, muttering incoherently. Sweets just faced everyone, rocking back and forth on his heels.

"Well, this is awkward." He finally said, just as the power kicked back on, effectively getting rid of the unwelcome visitors. Sighing, he walked back over to his couch and lay down. He probably would have fallen asleep if it weren't for Sammy suddenly asking, "Was I really blushing?"

"Yes. Now let me sleep." He said, before rolling over. Just before he was about to finally fall asleep, something Angela had said earlier finally clicked in his mind.

"Wait a second, Sammy, you talk about me with Angela?" He shot up, looking completely dumbfounded.

"Well…"

There was an awkward silence as he stared at the blonde, who was turning crimson again.

"Sammy." The shock in his voice was evident.

"Hey, I'm a teenage girl. What am I supposed to talk about, fluffy bunnies and quantum physics?"

"Those two things aren't even remotely related."

"I'm fully aware of that."

"Why do you talk about _me?"_

"Because I hang out with you all the time and Angela asked me if we were dating so I was explaining to her that we weren't dating and it ended up in a 30 minute long conversation."

Sweets just stared.

"Granted the fact that I was the one doing most of the talking."

More staring.

"Did I tell you that tomorrow's my birthday?"

"Nice change of subject."

"Really? Thanks."

"I have to go do… important stuff now. Stay here and _don't mess with anything."_

"Okay."

With that, Sweets walked out of his office, making sure he remembered to grab his jacket before leaving.

*~*~*

"Angela, what do you get a psychopath for their birthday?" Sweets asked, not bothering to greet anyone as he walked onto the forensics platform.

"I detest that phrase." Zack said from where he was sitting in the corner, reading a huge textbook.

"You aren't a psychopath, though."

"Are you forgetting the fact that I was very recently released from a mental institution?"

"I'm not forgetting that anytime soon, considering that I'm one of the people who busted you out of there."

"You're being metaphoric, correct?"

"Yes. Angela, you haven't answered my question yet."

"Okay. First off, who is the psychopath we're talking about?" Angela asked.

"I still detest that phrase!"

"We know, Zack."

"I'm talking about Sammy."

Angela couldn't help herself; she started laughing, eventually falling onto her knees and clutching her stomach as she struggled to breathe, and failing, fell backwards so that she was lying on her back, laughing harder than anyone would have thought possible.

"Oh God… you…Sammy…psycho….birthday…I can't…breathe." Angela struggled to say, her voice cracking as she continued to laugh.

"Are you alright?" Zack remained completely oblivious as to why Angela was laughing so hard. His time in the institution had made him even more oblivious, if anything.

"You two…complete idiots!" Angela managed to gasp, still on her back laughing.

"You still haven't told me what to get Sammy for her birthday!" Sweets protested.

Several minutes later, Angela finally managed to calm herself down and stood up, dusting off her jeans before looking Sweets in the eye.

"Buy her jewelry and ask her out." She said, managing to remain dead serious despite how hard she had been laughing earlier.

"But…"

"Do it."

"Why?"

"Because you two are almost as perfect for each other as Booth and Brennan, and none of you realize it, so you have to ask her out or else I'll find some horrible way to blackmail you, which may or may not require other people helping me. Am I understood?"

"But-"

"_Am I understood?!"_

"Yes." With that, Sweets disappeared. The moment he left, Angela lost it again and fell over laughing. Zack just raised an eyebrow before going back to reading his book – _The Human Skeletal Structure – _and deciding that nothing made sense anymore.

*~*~*

_The Next Day_

*~*~*

He should have expected her to be in his office when he got to work the next morning, smiling mischievously.

"Happy 18th birthday."

"Thanks. I hope you got me a better present than Angela." Sammy jumped off the desk, which she had been sitting on, and walked up to him. "She got me a pack of cigarettes, a lottery ticket, and a condom, and said that I should enjoy my 18th birthday the _right_ way."

"I should have warned you."

"She _also _told me what she told you yesterday." _Oh shit, _he thought to himself..

"What all did she say?" He asked, almost scared to know what the artist had said.

"She told me that she told you to ask me out."

He cursed mentally, gulping nervously. "And?"

"I accept."

He smiled, then handed her the present before rushing off to beg for Booth's help and to yell at a certain blackmailing artist.

*~*~*

**A/N: **And so continues my psychotic ramblings. As stated earlier, Sammy's character is a combination of my own and my friend Samantha's personalities, while she mainly has Samantha's demeanor and looks. Anyway, since I'm only… (double checks) 6 chapters away from finishing, and since I've managed to write 4 chapters in the past 3 days, I not only deserve reviews, but I think you should know that I'm planning on writing A SEQUEL. These words have terrified many a seasoned author, but I am a very stubborn Irish-Scottish author currently residing in Florida, which was colder than DC this morning, and I refuse to step down from such a challenge! I mean, I'm writing this, aren't I? Review.


	11. Chapter 10: The Clock On The Wall

_She believes that life is made up of all that you're used to_

_And the clock on the wall has been stuck at three for days, and days_

_She thinks that happiness is a mat that sits on her doorway_

_But outside it's stopped raining_

_~3 A.M. – Matchbox Twenty~_

*~*~*

_1 Month Earlier_

"I need your help." Sammy marched into Sweets' office as if she owned the place, as usual, but this time shadowed by 2 children Sweets didn't recognize, one of whom was a little boy about 8 years old with hair so dark red it was near black, chocolate eyes, and tan skin, who was holding onto Sammy's hand, and the other a little girl about 2 years old with straight brown hair and icy blue eyes, who was hanging off of Sammy's neck.

"What happened?" he asked, looking at the very distraught Sammy and the 2 shy- looking children.

"My sister is what happened. She showed up at my parents' house last night with her two kids and suitcases and asked where I was, and at 3 A.M. this morning she shows up at Angela's apartment, and I wasn't anywhere near the door so Angela answered, and Sarah just left her kids with me and told me to take care of them because she had stuff to do. And when I asked my mom about it this morning, she said that Sarah's husband was cheating on her so she left, and today she's meeting with a divorce lawyer, so she left me with Andrew and Katie, and I am not good at taking care of small children, and Sarah's 8 months pregnant and she freaking left her husband, who technically isn't Andrew's dad, and I need help because a psychotic - and I mean that extremely literally – conspiracy theorist and mother shouldn't be loose on the streets of DC!" The blonde begged.

Sweets blinked, unsure of what to say.

"What's your advice?" Sammy asked.

"Isn't your sister 24?"

"Yeah. Why?"

"If she's 24, how does she have an 8-year-old son?"

"I'm 9 and a half!" the little boy protested.

"9-year-old son." Sweets corrected. "She would have had to be 15 when she had him."

"It's a really long story that involves when my family lived in Chicago, this really infamous gang, and my sister being a magnet for trouble."

"Okay then. What do you want me to do about it?"

"I don't know how to take care of small children! My IQ was always too high for me to act like a child myself! They're confusing and I don't know how to take care of them and I need someone who understands how to – that's it!" Sammy was suddenly struck with an idea. "I gotta go."

With that, the blonde turned and walked out of the office, taking the children with her.

Sweets stared after her retreating form, wondering what he should have said that would have made sense to the psychotic blonde.

*~*~*

Sammy marched into the Jeffersonian, with her niece and nephew still in tow, and walked straight up to the forensics platform, which was empty except for one very focused Zack, who didn't notice the approaching blonde until she was standing next to him.

"I need you to take care of my sister's kids while I try and find her." The blonde said, startling Zack and causing him to jump backwards in fear, which inevitably led to him falling off his chair onto the ground, where he looked up at his small audience.

"Where did you come from and who are those very small humans who look somewhat similar to you?"

"I came from Chicago, and these very small humans are my niece and nephew, who my rather eccentric sister has decided that I should take care of today, but since I don't know how to take care of children, I figured that you could teach them something science-y and that way they'd at least learn something other than how to speak Italian."

"You have a sister?" Zack asked as Sammy handed Katie to the baby's big brother and walked over to help him up.

"Yes, the one and only Sarah Gabrielle Clemenza. And that's typically how one ends up with nieces and nephews if they don't have a brother." Sammy replied, somewhat sarcastic until she noticed the completely clueless look on Zack's face.

"Why do you have your sister's kids?"

"Because she found out last night her husband was cheating on her, so she left him and took her kids, and while she's talking with divorce lawyers and presumably the other woman, I have to take care of these two," Sammy explained, pointing to the two children. "Which I can't really do and Sarah is fully aware of that, so I need someone smarter than me, which is extremely hard to find, to take care of them for me."

"Why is it extremely hard to find someone smarter than you?"

"Because my IQ is 195. The average is around 110 for the population. And you're one of the three people I know who's smarter than me."

"Who are the other two?"

"Dr. Brennan and my sister."

"Your sister can't be that intelligent if she trusts a teenager with two little kids."

"I'm 18, and Andrew isn't a little kid, really. He's 9."

"9 and a half!" the little boy protested.

"9 and a half. Katie's the little kid."

"How old is she?"

"Almost 2 years old."

"Why is there the big age difference?"

"My sister's 24 and my family used to live in the worst part of downtown Chicago until she was 14. I'll let you interpret that any way you want."

"I don't know how to interpret that."

"You really are oblivious, aren't you? Rhetorical question," Sammy stopped Zack from answering the question quickly. "Anyway, just take care of them while I track down Sarah." The blonde said, then turned on her heel and walked away, leaving Zack with the two children.

"What do I do now?" he asked, more to himself than to anyone else. Andrew answered quickly.

"Aunt Sammy usually blows stuff up when we stay with her."

Zack smiled, memories of numerous science experiments flooding his mind.

"I'll see what I can do." He said, smiling rather evilly before motioning for the kids to come with him. They did, and soon had kidnapped Hodgins and Wendell and were planning the biggest explosion they could.

*~*~*

"So I ran all over the city looking for my sister, and she wasn't answering her cell phone, and I really don't know what to do." Sammy ranted, sitting in the passenger seat of Sweets' Audi R8 – which he had spent all the money he could on and would never let anybody but him drive – as they pulled into the parking lot of the Jeffersonian. "And I'm really worried about her, though she's older than me and she can take care of herself, but still, this is really freaking me out! What if she did something stupid again?"

"I'm sure she'll be fine." Sweets reassured the blonde, parking the car as far away from any other cars as he could. They got out and began walking towards the building. "It's not like she'll get attacked by wolves or something."

There was a sudden explosion from the roof of the Jeffersonian, which sent a cloud of flame and smoke into the sky.

"Oh my _GOD, _what did they do?!" Sammy shrieked, before sprinting towards the building. "This is all Sarah's fault!" she shouted as she ran into the building. Sweets stared in shock at the flames for a minute, then ran to catch up with Sammy.

*~*~*

"WHAT WERE YOU _THINKING?! _BLOWING STUFF UP BECAUSE A 9-YEAR-OLD TOLD YOU TOO?! AND WHERE THE HELL IS KATIE?!" Sammy screamed at the two squints standing in front of her, one looking very freaked out and one looking somewhat confused.

"I was thinking that causing a potassium-based explosion and explaining in detail to Andrew how it was created would be beneficial to his higher education if he decides to pursue a career in a field related to science." Zack stated monotonously.

Sammy raised an eyebrow. "What the hell is wrong with you?"

"Which one of us are you speaking with?"

"_You, _Zack."

"Oh."

"Are you going to answer?"

"Yes."

"Well?"

"Asperger's syndrome." He stated.

"Just like Sarah. That explains a lot."

"What explains a lot?"

"Why you act the way you do."

"Why do I act how?"

Sammy sighed. "The fact that you have Asperger's explains why you act the way you do."

"You are an extremely patient person."

"Thanks. But I'm only patient because of my sister. She borderlines between full-blown HFA and Asperger's. She can be worse than Zack." Sammy explained to Hodgins and Sweets, who were amazed at the girl's ability to calm down so quickly when talking to someone unable to even hold a conversation with a normal person without confusing them. But everyone had figured out a long time ago that Sammy was in no way even remotely normal.

"Anyway, where is Katie?"

"Angela's taking care of her."

With that, Sammy took her nephew's hand and dragged him away, muttering about psychopaths ruling the world.

*~*~*

"So, did you ever find your sister?" Sweets asked. He and Sammy were curled up on his couch, watching the X-Files Season 1 DVD and imitating Mystery Science Theater every other minute or so.

"Yep. She was at my mom's. She's filed for divorce and my parents are forcing them to make them work faster. It should be over in about a week, considering the rate it's going. Angela even called that one lawyer lady who helped get Zack out of the loony bin to help and she's already given my sister full custody of Andrew and Katie, who apparently – and I did not know this – aren't her husband's kids, and he didn't adopt them. She was just pregnant and didn't know it when she got married. Like I said, she gets into a lot of trouble."

"Why does she get into so much trouble?"

"She's more naïve and oblivious than even Zack. She knows more about the supernatural and paranormal and Fringe stuff than anyone, and she used to be a rock singer, but she's so innocent that it's scary. I mean, she knows a lot more than anybody would expect from someone who thinks that 'Hold your horses' means that she has to go into her bedroom and pick up all her stuffed horses, not to mention she is horrible when it comes to making eye contact, but releasing her into the real world would be like releasing a bunny into a pack of wolves or Zack in Miami after giving him caffeine."

"God, that's a scary thought."

"The bunnies or my sister?"

"No, Zack on caffeine."

Sammy snorted, falling on her side laughing.

"I never thought of it that way." She finally managed to say, sitting back up.

"When you work with the people I work with, you get used to them being crazy and you're scared of it."

"Can't you officially declare them insane, though?"

"They aren't insane, just their minds work differently. Zack has Asperger's, Brennan might but she doesn't quite fit the criteria-"

"PDD-NOD."

"Huh?"

"Pervasive Developmental Disorder – Not Otherwise Determined. It's like Asperger's but the symptoms are less noticeable."

"Okay. Thanks for that. Anyway, Hodgins has clinical paranoia-"

"We should tell him there's a secret society running the FBI."

"He already thinks that."

"Never mind."

"Anyway, the rest of them are, for the most part, normal."

"They all seem crazy to me. But I'm not a psychologist, so I wouldn't know."

"I'd say something, but it's funnier watching you try and figure everything out yourself."

"That's just mean."

"I know."

Sammy laughed, hitting Sweets in the chest as she tried to find a way to yell at him without causing serious injury.

It was a strange sort of peace.

*~*~*

**A/N: **92 emails. 92 fricking emails. I miss 4 days and this is what I come back to. This is why I never go anywhere without internet if I can help it! On the bright side, I'm bringing in the new year with a belated Christmas present – Season 3 of Bones on DVD! XD (AKA the season with Zack and Sweets. Happiness! XD)


	12. Chapter 11: How's Your Day?

**A/N: **And here, there's another mention of my rather infamous band, _Juniper Volt._

*~*~*

_How's your day_

_Did it go your way but_

_You never ask about it_

_All the things I wish I'd be_

_~Extra Pale – Goo Goo Dolls~_

*~*~*

_3 Weeks Earlier_

"It's not fair!"

Sweets jumped, looking up from his computer at the very distressed looking blonde who had just stormed into his office, wearing mismatched clothes – most likely the first she had found – with her hair a mess and her jacket and purse under one arm, with her cell phone in her other hand as she frantically dialed some unknown number.

"Good morning to you too." He said, unsure of what else to say. Sammy looked on the verge of tears, but was too angry to focus on that particular emotion and seemed to be on the verge of a panic attack.

"Who the hell lets their 14 year old kid drive around DC at 2:00 in the morning and who gave him alcohol and why was my sister driving around with her 2-year-old in the _front seat of the fricking car?" _she continued to ramble, obviously using it as an excuse to keep herself from completely breaking down.

Sweets blinked, still unsure of what to say.

"What happened that you're freaking out about?"

"My sister is a complete idiot, that's what, and parents do not care about teenagers these days."

"That's really not helpful."

"Don't you watch the news? I mean, I understand if you don't because it's all really weird and everything with all the murder and other stuff, but still, you'd think that people would just be a little bit more logical and I…" Sammy finally lost the ability to speak, falling backwards onto the couch.

Sweets hadn't moved at all, still in mild shock.

"You still haven't told me what happened."

"My sister and her kids were in a really bad car crash. She and Andrew are fine, but…" Sammy sighed, leaning back in the chair. "She's an idiot."

"What about her daughter?"

Sammy didn't answer.

"Sammy, the silence thing really isn't helping."

"When I said 'really bad car crash', I meant fatal. And that moronic kid who drove the other car doesn't have a scratch on him. It's not fair!" Sammy emphasized her last statement by punching the couch as hard as she could. "It's not fair!"

Sweets stood up and walked towards the now semi-hysterical blonde, still worried about her mental state but deciding it was understandable.

"And Katie… she wasn't even 2!" Sammy continued.

He sat down next to her, letting her rant and trying to understand half the things she was saying.

"And the baby… oh my God, this isn't _fair!"_

He bit his lip, considering what to say to the ranting, angry blonde.

"Do you want coffee?"

"I want to kill that kid."

"I know. But since murder is illegal, let's just settle for coffee."

"But I want to kill him."

"He'll be arrested for driving without a license, driving under the influence, and 2 counts of vehicular manslaughter. He's not getting out of jail any time soon."

"But I want to kill him. Jail is letting him get off easy."

"Like I said, murder is illegal."

"I hate him. I don't even know him and I hate him. I think I could murder him."

"And like I just said, murder is illegal and you'll go to jail."

"I don't care."

"I understand, but I think that after you actually have some coffee you'll begin to think more rationally. Did you get any sleep at all?"

"I have acute insomnia. I haven't slept more than 30 minutes a night since Christmas and I mean that literally."

"Wow."

"My sister has total insomnia, though. And it's messing her mind up."

"Is that why she went driving at 2 A.M.?"

"Yes. I still want to kill that kid."

"Let's go get coffee." Sweets said, taking her hand and leading the slightly less hysterical blonde out of his office.

*~*~*

Several cups of coffee later, Sweets found himself leaving work – "Family emergency" he told one of the agents as he rushed past – and driving Sammy to Bethesda, where her sister and nephew were.

When he arrived, the apparent "Family Emergency" had traveled through the rumor mill to the Jeffersonian, where the various squints and 1 very confused FBI agent were in the waiting room.

Sweets let Sammy talk/yell at her sister while he went to the waiting room to explain to everyone that he was fine and didn't need everyone here.

They were being stubborn.

"Guys, you don't have to be here. This is Sammy's family emergency, not mine or any of yours." He tried once more to explain.

"You're part of our family, though." Angela said. While he appreciated this, they still didn't get the point.

"But this is _Sammy _that we're talking about. As in Samantha Kaley Clemenza. Not me, not anybody else. Except her sister."

"Sammy has a sister?" several people asked at once.

"Yes. Sarah Gabrielle Clemenza. You may have heard of her, or her band Juniper Volt_. _She's relatively famous. And she and her son weren't severely injured in the crash."

"She's in Juniper Volt?" Zack asked. Everyone turned to stare at him, confused as to why he of all people knew a relatively unknown rock band.

"Zack. How do you know about them? _You, _of all people." Hodgins asked, finally speaking up.

"I heard one of their songs when I was 19. They were very popular at my school, and I really enjoyed the music."

"Yeah. Sarah was 15 when they released their first album. She's the lead singer. What song did you hear?" Sweets finally broke the very strange silence that had fallen over everyone.

"I believe it was called _Wordplay, _but I'm not sure. It's a very good song."

"That song was recorded a capella. There's nothing else on the entire song."

"I'm aware of that.

"Sarah was the only one singing."

"There was an accompanied version released later."

"She did that with her computer."

"Which is very impressive, considering it was in 2003. Technology wasn't as advanced then as in, say, 2009."

"It was edited using GarageBand."

"I don't know what that is."

"A computer program on most iMacs."

"Ah."

"Anyway, I don't know where Sammy went. She was yelling at the nurses last time I saw her."

"What do you mean yelling?"

"Death threats; hara kiri, chainsaw, sledgehammer, motorcycle accident, stuff like that."

"But you said that her sister wasn't severely injured."

Sweets stared at the oblivious squint, trying to figure out how to explain everything to him.

"She lost her daughter, Zack. _And_ her unborn child. Emotionally, she's a wreck."

"Aren't you going to talk to her?"

"I don't know her that well."

"But you're a psychologist."

"I know."

"So you should talk to her."

"I don't want to be murdered."

"Why would you be murdered?"

Sweets considered this. "Sammy, her psychotic sister, death threats. All stuff I'd rather not deal with."

"But you're a _psychologist. _You talk to psychotic people every day."

"You aren't going to stop this, are you?"

"No."

"Fine." Sweets turned and walked away, leaving the various squints in the waiting room. Seconds later, Andrew walked out, his arm in a sling, followed by Sammy.

"My mom just cussed out the psychologist guy." Andrew stated, laughing quietly.

"It was actually really entertaining. He didn't even say anything and then she tried to throw a shoe at him." Sammy added, smiling.

"I think it was 'cuz the doctors said she had to stay here for another couple days."

"Well, that's typically what happens when you have a mental breakdown. They want to make sure she won't hurt herself."

"But she gets herself hurt enough on accident! She doesn't need to hurt herself."

"Truer words have never been said."

"Probably." The 9-year-old shortened the word to "prolly", something Sammy did on a regular basis, more signs that he hung out with his aunt more than anybody else.

The others were standing, slightly detached from the conversation, watching, though some would argue that they were observing, the teenager-adult and the little boy interact, another feat of complete mental age shifts, which they had all learned was something that only the Clemenza family was fully capable of – Sweets was probably included in that generalization, by now – and tended to do at most times.

Sweets finally walked back into the waiting room, nursing a bruise on his jaw that judging from the size had apparently been the effect of having a shoe thrown at him.

"She's checking herself out of the hospital. Death threats and everything." He explained as he walked towards the vending machine and bought a can of soda, which he then used as an ice pack.

"I should warn you all, though; she's just a tiny bit, uh… well, you know Juniper Volt's a punk rock band, right?" Sammy spoke to the group who wasn't currently laughing to themselves or using a soda can as an ice pack.

"I know." Zack was the only one to speak, but he was also, apparently, the only one in the group who had listened to the band on purpose, instead of having it come on the radio while driving.

"And you know what the scene style is?"

"I have absolutely no idea."

"You'll find out soon."

As if on cue, the person who could only be Sarah Gabrielle Clemenza walked into the room.

The squints' facial expressions were priceless.

Despite the fact that it was early January, Sarah was wearing acid washed, ripped neon blue jeans, with fishnets underneath, a red and white striped tube top, and a bright yellow, faux leather short-sleeved jacket, and steel-toed construction boots. She was about 5'6", considerably taller than her sister, but much paler in comparison, with dyed, dark crimson hair with bright blue, purple, and red streaks that fell down to her shoulders in waves, not to mention the silver eyeliner and red eyeshadow that accented ridiculously blue eyes, and skull earrings. There were tattoos visible on her arms, covering numerous scars from various accidents.

"Zack?" Hodgins was waving his hand in front of the younger squint's face in an attempt to get his attention, though he was in an apparent state of shock.

"You're the lead singer of Juniper Volt." Zack finally managed to say, still staring in shock. Sarah raised an eyebrow until she realized he was unable to say anything else, and laughed.

"I know."

"I have no idea what else I'm supposed to say."

"I could tell." Sarah then turned to look at Sammy and Sweets, the former of which was trying to convince the latter to go talk to a doctor about a possible concussion. "So when are you two getting married?"

The two practically flew apart at the question, looking extremely nervous.

"Married? What do you-how-Sarah!" Sammy was unable to form coherent sentences. Sweets was completely speechless.

"What? It was an honest question."

"We aren't getting married anytime soon."

"Whatever." Sarah muttered skeptically as she turned around to talk to Andrew. "Let's go home, Shorty."

"Okay, mom." The two walked out, as the others looked at each other, trying to figure out what had just happened. Except for Zack, who was still staring in complete shock at the open door.

"She was extremely attractive." He finally stated.

Hodgins slapped Zack on the back of the head as Sammy fell to the ground, laughing hysterically.

"Dude," the laughing blonde managed to spit out, "she's my _sister! _And she just got divorced!"

"I don't understand." Zack said bluntly. "What did I say?"

"She means that it would be really awkward if you dated her." Hodgins explained.

"Why would it be awkward?"

The others only sighed as the young anthropologist looked at everyone, completely confused.

"Nobody's answering my questions."

*~*~*

**A/N: **I'm sorry I didn't update this earlier. I was honest to god nowhere near a computer. But I have a floor. Anyway, if you haven't heard it, go listen to Replay by Iyaz. It reminds me of this story! Review!


	13. Chapter 12: I Will Not Let You Down

**A/N: **I think Bruce is starting to influence my stories too much… Anyway, this is mostly dialogue because my brother and I have very strange conversations when he's driving me home.

*~*~*

_Hope and pray that you'll never need me,_

_But rest assured I will not let you down._

_I'll walk beside you but you may not see me,_

_The strongest among you may not wear a crown._

_~Citizen/Soldier – 3 Doors Down~_

*~*~*

_2 Weeks Earlier_

Sweets sat in front of his computer, staring at the completely blank screen, hoping that inspiration would appear out of nowhere.

It was hard to come up with inspiration for anything given his current situation.

After the funeral for her niece and nephew – they had learned all too late that the baby Sarah would have had was a boy – Sammy had all but disappeared, deciding instead to stay home with Andrew and watch old home movies, while her sister ran around in grief, which Sweets had learned from Sammy involved "drinking, dancing, and death metal".

Zack, he had learned, had his own issues, as well, though his, true to character, were much different. The day after the car crash, he had walked into Sweets' office and asked, very bluntly, the best way to ask a punk rocker on a date.

In retrospect, he probably shouldn't have laughed at Zack for this. The kid was completely oblivious to everything regarding social relationships, and his time in the mental hospital probably hadn't helped much with this fact.

He had asked Sammy why she didn't just stay at headquarters, but she had told him that it would be better for her if she was alone, and to write a story or something.

He took her advice and was now suffering from a severe case of writer's block.

Who knew writing a story was so hard?

There was a knock on the door and he looked up, waiting for whoever it was to enter.

Nobody entered.

"Zack, stop standing outside my door and come in already."

The slightly confused looking anthropologist walked in.

"How did you know it was me?" he asked, sitting down to face the psychologist.

"Because, unlike most of my patients, you actually wait for me to tell you to come in instead of barging in here like some people." Sweets explained, turning off his computer and picking up his coffee cup, taking a sip.

"Sarah asked me out. Or at least I think she did."

Sweets instantly regretted taking a sip at that exact moment, as he choked and nearly spat out the coffee.

"She did _what?" _Sweets finally managed to ask after he recovered from the coffee incident.

"She broke into the lab, broke all security protocols and got onto the forensics platform, and before security dragged her away she managed to give me her cell phone number and asked me to go with a club to her tonight, and to call her once I had decided what to do."

Sweets was speechless. He knew that Sarah was insane, but this was beyond crazy.

"I don't know what to do." Zack continued.

"I can't help you with this one."

"Why not?"

"Because this is my girlfriend's _sister _we're talking about."

"You say that as if there's some meaning to that fact that I'm supposed to know."

"…You don't see how you having any sort of relationship with Sarah would be _extremely_ awkward considering the circumstances?"

"No."

"I will explain this to you once more. And I really hope you'll understand. Sarah is my girlfriend's sister. As in my possible future sister-in-law. And if you dated her, that would make _you _my possible future brother-in-law."

"How is that awkward?"

"You know what? I don't think I can explain this to you. Go ask Angela or Hodgins and maybe they'll be able to explain what I mean."

Zack nodded, then walked away, leaving Sweets in complete shock.

Seconds later, Sammy walked in, carrying a crumpled piece of paper in one hand and looking paranoid and confused.

"Please tell me that this is going to be a normal conversation instead of like the one I just had with Zack." Sweets pleaded. Sammy raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah…I won't ask. Anyway, I just got a death threat from my ex boyfriend and my sister called me half an hour ago to say that she asked Zack out."

"Whoa – you got a _death threat?"_

"Eh. It's no big deal, right? Sarah threatens to kill people all the time and never does, _and_ she gets death threats all the time."

"Why isn't anybody thinking normally today?"

"What? I told you it's no big deal."

"It's a death threat, Sammy. You don't see why that concerns me at all?"

"He won't actually hurt me." Sammy handed over the letter. Sweets sighed and began to read it. The handwriting was sloppy, written in a haste, but had been written in anger.

_Sammy – I don't know who your new guy is, but if you keep showing him off like you're doing, I will come to your house and shoot you._

_You know who this is._

"Sammy," he began. "This is serious."

"Should I give it to one of the agents?"

"If you don't, I will."

Sammy fell silent, considering this.

"Fine. But it's not like it'll actually do anything. Stalkers tend to be like that." Sammy stated, before turning on her heels and walking out of the room.

Sweets sighed, before chasing after the blonde.

*~*~*

"So what'd the agent say?" He asked, walking next to Sammy and desperately trying to use a cup of coffee to warm his hands. It was way too cold for human beings, and his brain had stopped working altogether about 20 degrees ago.

"They can't do anything unless he actually tries to kill me." Sammy explained. "I'm not sure, but isn't making sure someone won't get killed part of their job?"

"Good point."

"I could ask my sister for some pointers, though."

"On _what? _Getting stalked?"

"Being able to change my identity in 30 minutes and completely flawlessly."

"You mean like Witness Protection or changing your name?"

Sammy laughed.

"My sister was always dramatic. The first thing I learned about her was that she is, when necessary, a perfect liar when it comes to making people believe she's someone she's not. She has a dozen different personas, and unlike a lot of people, she can actually change her entire _personality_ along with her looks."

"What is she, a criminal?"

"A criminal, no. A neurotic, genius punk rocker and actress, yes."

"Usually it's criminals who change their names."

"Like I said, Sarah's paranoid. But she's also still pretty much a child at heart and that's why it's so hard for her to take care of Andrew and act maturely."

"Sure."

"Anyway, I'll be fine."

"But he knows where you _live_."

"True…"

"What are you gonna do?"

"Well, I'm 18, so I can finally rent a hotel room."

"No. No hotels."

"Why?"

"Credit cards. Paper trail."

"Then where?"

Sweets stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, thinking.

"The guest room in my house."

"Why the guest room? Why not yours?"

"Because, Shorty, you have _waaaaay _too many clothes."

"I do not!"

"Don't argue with me."

"It's my job to argue."

"No it's not. Your job is being a secretary for 3 hours a day at a law firm."

"…Shut up."

"You can't make me. First Amendment."

"Not fair. In that case…I'm taking the Second Amendment."

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"It means that if you won't shut up I will shoot you."

"You wouldn't do that."

Sammy walked away, smiling.

"Sammy? You weren't being serious, were you? Sammy!" He had to sprint to catch up with the blonde, who walked freakishly fast for someone so short. "Samantha!"

Sammy laughed as she walked away.

*~*~*

**A/N**: So in this past week, I've nearly gotten into a car wreck because some idiot in a blue Ford Fusion didn't realize that my brother's car was right behind them, realized my cell phone isn't working, and learned that _CHRYSLER _is suing my school (article on my profile). This is stuff that only happens to me. Anyway, I want to start writing Zack's part of this story, but I also want to play Sims 3... what to do...


	14. Chapter 13: Still I'll Never Understand

**A/N: **I'm trying very hard not to be overly romantic in this chapter, but I'm in a really good mood because I finally have a decent boyfriend who isn't the stalker-obsessive-overly-jealous type, so I'm happy.

*~*~*

_Hey girl you know you drive me crazy_

_One look puts the rhythm in my hand._

_Still I'll never understand why you hang around_

_I see what's going down._

_~Face Down – The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus~_

*~*~*

_1 Week Earlier_

"Someone's happy."

Sammy looked up from the chair that she had been spinning around in for the past 5 minutes, humming quietly to herself, to see Angela standing in the door to her office, a knowing smirk on her face.

"I've been really happy for…I don't know. I'm just really happy." The blonde spun herself around once more, throwing her arms up. "There's no reason for me to even be so happy, is there?"

"Oh, there is. Trust me."

"What is it?"

Angela smirked again, her eyes sparkling. "Tell me!"

"You're in love, Shorty."

"First off, I am not short. Second, how can you tell that someone's in love just by looking at them?"

"Is that a confession?"

Sammy blushed. "No…"

"You're in love with Sweets."

The blonde just blushed, biting her lower lip.

"Sweetie, you're really easy to read. You aren't doing a good job of hiding anything."

Sammy covered her face with her hands, trying to hide the fact that she was now a deep crimson.

"There's no way you can tell these things." She stated, her voice muffled by her hands and jacket.

"Oh, but I can. It's a really strange sort of euphoria; being in love, that is. All logic and common sense you once had disappears, and the only person you can think of is the one you're in love with."

Sammy didn't respond. She was still hiding her face.

"Now I want you to walk out of here and go straight to Sweets' office. And then since you're already going out with him, I want you to make out with him. In his office. And I have my ways; I will find out if you avoid this."

"Do I have to?"

"Yes, Shorty."

The blonde sighed, then stood up and walked out of the office, still blushing.

*~*~*

She walked into Sweets' office carrying two Starbucks coffee cups, one a caramel macchiato with way too much sugar, the other simple black coffee. She had to laugh when she saw the psychologist asleep, lying on his couch, his iPod headphones in his ears but no music on. Perfect.

She placed the coffee cups on the table, then – while trying very hard not to wake up Sweets – picked up his iPod and scrolled through the music, before she chose her weapon of choice – _Hand of Blood _by Bullet For My Valentine – and turned it up as quickly as she could before the guitar solo began.

The psychologist jolted awake at the sound of the music blasting in his ears, falling off of the couch as Sammy laughed hysterically.

Sweets scrambled onto his feet, ripping out his headphones as he did, and looked around quickly in panic until he realized who the perpetrator was. "Shorty, what the hell did you do that for?"

"Don't question my motives." Sammy retorted, giggling quietly. "Drink your coffee." She ordered.

Sweets grabbed the cup nearest to him and took a sip, before choking and putting the cup back down. "Again with the black coffee?"

"Sorry. Yours is the other one." Sammy apologized, picking up the coffee that had caused Sweets to temporarily lose his sense of taste. "Can't even drink plain coffee. Wimp." She muttered.

"I heard that!"

"I know you did. Why do you think I said it?"

Sweets sat down on the couch, rolling his eyes. "If I didn't know better, I'd say you were trying to kill me."

"How do you know I'm not?" Sammy replied, dead serious.

Sweets gulped.

"Kidding. I'm kidding. Geez, you really think I'd kill you? That's my sister's job."

"Your sister would kill people?"

Sammy just smiled.

"Wait – has she killed people before?"

"Only in self defense. Granted she was 16, but that girl is ridiculously overprotective of her friends and family."

Sweets stared at the blonde in shock. "What happened?"

"Some guy came up to her when she was at the park with Andrew. He kept hitting on her and asked her out– she said no - so he took Andrew and tried to run away. She pulled out her pocketknife, jumped on his back and slit his neck, then took Andrew away before he could fall and called 911. He died, quite obviously. She got off without any charges."

"Why a pocketknife?"

"It was all she had on her and she didn't want to waste her time strangling him. But you have to wonder if Andrew's gonna have any reaction to that later on; formative memory and all."

"How old was he? One? It can't be that bad."

"Well, contrary to your beliefs, if you're only an infant and you're kidnapped by a creepy guy who tries to take you away from your mother, and then your mother jumps on the guy's back and slits his throat before taking you away and calling the cops, who will not leave her alone for a few hours and try to take you away before a bunch of witnesses explain what really happened, then yeah; it's traumatizing. But the kid practically worships her, so it's alright."

Sweets didn't know what to say. He voiced this thought and Sammy laughed.

"You know, for a genius you can be a real idiot sometimes."

"I'm not an idiot!"

"Sure." Sammy took a sip of her coffee, watching Sweets from over the lid of the cup. "That's what they all say."

"How did we even get on this topic?"

"Because you questioned my motives."

"Why are you even here? Aren't you supposed to be at work?"

"I took the day off."

"Why?"

"'Cause my ex keeps calling to ask if I'm there and if he can talk to me and I keep having to say that I'm not there, so I don't want to keep lying and I took the day off."

"He's still stalking you?"

"The bouquet of roses he sent me was a nice touch?"

"He sent you _flowers_?"

"Yep."

"What'd you do with them?"

"I put them in the washing machine and filled it with bleach to see what would happen. Angela was mad that I broke her washing machine for a while but then I explained everything to her. Did you know that if you put roses in a washing machine with bleach they end up all torn apart and white? It looks _really _cool."

"But the evidence, Sammy. You can't destroy it. You need to save it for the various psychopaths at the Jeffersonian to analyze so that they can arrest the guy for stalking."

"I realize that, but it's much more fun to destroy it. It's very cathartic."

"But they can't convict the guy if you _bleach_ the evidence!"

"Oh, I know. My phone records are good enough evidence, though. He's called me 57 times in the past week on my cell phone alone. I can't figure out how to block the number."

"…"

"Are you okay?"

"No. I'm not okay. My girlfriend is being stalked by her ex, who happens to be a drug-addicted sociopath, so no, I'm not okay."

"Would a kiss make you feel better?"

"I don't-" He couldn't finish. Sammy threw her arms around his neck, standing on her toes to kiss him, effectively cutting him off.

*~*~*

**A/N: **Hehe… Sammy makes me laugh. Anyway, I'm working on Inhumanity, the next chapter of which I'll try to have posted by tomorrow. In other news, I finally have a non-stalker boyfriend, which has kept me on a high all weekend, Bruce has threatened to kill said boyfriend at least 3 times already if he does anything I don't approve or Bruce doesn't approve of. And I have exams on Tuesday after the brilliance that is this 3-day weekend. And I'm listening to Soulja Boy, even though I don't usually listen to rap. XD Good times. Reviews?


	15. Chapter 14: Wasn't Asking For The World

**A/N: **At long last…the last chapter! There'll be an epilogue, but still, THE LAST CHAPTER! This story has taken up the past 3 months of my life – or at least, that's when I started writing – but if you account for all the time before that I didn't write, freshman year has been hell with this story so far… so now, at long last… I'm almost done. Anyway, I need you to open up another window, go to YouTube, and play the chapter song very loudly.

*~*~*

_All these city streets_

_The people look the same_

_And I can see your face_

_And I can hear your name_

_I wasn't asking for the world._

_~Your Sword Versus My Dagger – Silverstein~_

*~*~*

_D-Day._

"Sammy?" Sweets walked into his kitchen, shadowed by Joel, who at 3 months old was more cat-sized than kitten-sized. Sammy turned around from the stove, where she had been cooking… he wasn't really sure. "How did you get in here?"

"I used a key." She said. "Do you want anything on your omelet?"

"Where did you get a key?" he asked.

"That obviously fake plant in front of your door wouldn't fool anyone. Flowers don't typically survive freezing cold weather unless they're some mutant ninja plant from Antarctica, which doesn't really have plants."

"Alright. Is there anything in my fridge other than eggs?"

"There's cheese and milk. And I found pepper over there. Just enough to make my world famous omelets. You need to eat real food for once."

"Okay then. Can you put cheese on mine?"

"Sure."

*~*~*

30 minutes later found the two sitting on the couch, empty plates in front of them, the TV playing the local news. Their typical Mystery Science Theater mode had taken over, and they were commenting on all the news stories and the stupid reporters, one of whom they recognized as the one Sweets had punched in the face and whose car had gotten a makeover thanks to Sammy.

"You know, that guy's gonna get killed one day with all his stupid reports. Come to think of it, all reporters are pretty much as incompetent as this guy." Sweets said, watching as the reporter babbled on about a car crash on the interstate.

"Not _all _of them are stupid." Sammy replied. "It's just that the ones here are much more stupid than the ones in other parts of the country, such as Chicago or Orlando."

"Why Orlando?"

"I went there on vacation once. It's not at all like people think it is. There are thunderstorms every day in the summer, 98% of the people can't drive, and the 2% that can try very hard not to get into a car crash. Not to mention most of the people are _really_ rude, save for a couple of people, including that one girl who gave my parents directions to the hospital when Sarah fell into the lake at Universal."

"Why did she fall into the lake?"

"Eh, who knows? She's a klutz. She loses fights to inanimate objects easily."

"Your sister worries me."

"She worries everyone."

*~*~*

It was 09:27 when someone knocked at the door, according to the clock on the TV.

Sweets stood up, walking to the door, shadowed by Sammy, and opened it, then froze.

Standing at the door was Jason O'Neill.

In his hand was a .45

"Where's Sammy?" the drug addict asked, a hint of hysteria in his voice.

Sweets gulped, yet stood his ground. "She's not here."

Sammy took the hint and quickly ran to the second floor of the house, silently, straight to the bedroom.

"If I were a psychologist, where would I hide a gun?" she asked herself quietly, looking around the room.

*~*~*

"Jason." Sweets said, trying to stay as calm as he could. "Why are you here?"

"For Sammy. Where is she?"

"I told you. She's not here." It was amazing that he was able to stay so calm when there was a crazy drug-addict holding a gun standing in front of him. "You need to leave."

"No. Not without Sammy."

"I told you. She's not here." Sweets tried to close the door, but Jason pushed his way into the house and slammed the door, locking it without looking.

_Oh shit, _Sweets thought.

*~*~*

"No organization whatsoever." Sammy muttered, ripping out the drawers to the nightstand and finding nothing but papers. "Where is that damn gun?"

*~*~*

"Jason, really. She's not here. Get out of my house."

"No."

Sweets reached into his pocket for his cell phone, pressing speed dial #1 and hoping that whoever it was would hear the fight that was bound to happen and call 911.

"If you don't leave I'm calling the cops." He said, backing away and trying to remain calm.

Jason reacted by punching Sweets in the jaw.

*~*~*

Booth's office phone rarely rang. His cell phone, yes, but not his office phone. Regardless, he answered.

"Hello?"

The only thing he could hear was the sound of a fight. Looking at the caller ID, he recognized the number and quickly reacted, grabbing his gun and badge out of his desk and running out of the room.

*~*~*

Sweets stumbled back, rubbing his jaw in pain and trying to avoid the now-crazed drug addict, who he had just realized was high and bent on killing him.'

"Where is Sammy?" Jason managed to say, his voice still several octaves above normal.

Sweets didn't say anything, just walked in a wide circle in an attempt to get to the door.

*~*~*

Sammy finally found the gun in the dresser, buried under piles of concert tees.

Karma really hated her, however; it wasn't loaded.

She cursed silently and began another mad search for ammo.

*~*~*

Sweets would have been able to run out the door if he hadn't been punched again, causing him to fall back so that he was leaning on the door.

He looked up, vision blurry, to see Jason approaching him again, and he scrambled to his feet, diving to the side.

*~*~*

Booth didn't care how many traffic laws he was breaking. He was a federal agent and one of his people was in a fight. Considering that it was Sweets, probably a really bad one and the kid was probably losing.

He turned on the sirens and accelerated through the red light.

*~*~*

Sammy was really pissed, and really freaked out. What kind of person had a gun and hid the ammo somewhere else?

*~*~*

Sweets was briefly aware of being picked up off the ground – his vision and consciousness were deteriorating quickly – before being thrown to the ground. He heard glass shatter a split second before the pain took over his entire body. He realized that it was the coffee table – Sammy had been right telling him that glass tables were dangerous.

Groaning, he tried to stand up, just to have Jason grab his arm and twist it behind his back.

The sound of bones cracking reached his ears a split second before the pain attacked his arm.

*~*~*

Sammy heard the sound of the table shattering from upstairs, and she knew she only had a short time.

IN a last, desperate fit to find the bullets, she threw the mattress off the bed.

Her prize was there and she quickly loaded the gun.

*~*~*

The pain had taken over, but his only focus was on distracting Jason long enough for Sammy to get out of the house.

The small bit of self-defense he knew finally kicked in and he stood up, spinning around and kicking Jason as hard as he could in the crotch.

The drug addict didn't even react to the pain.

Meth does that to a person.

Sweets cursed and tried to run towards the sliding glass door.

*~*~*

People had no respect for police anymore. Nobody gave Booth the right-of-way as he sped through the intersection and towards the neighborhood.

*~*~*

She realized that she wasn't going to be able to go downstairs, what with the fight.

Despite the fact she hadn't tried anything so stupid since her sister decided they should both be ninjas, she ran to the window, opened it, threw the gun into the yard, then leapt down, landing hard on her feet. She knew her ankle was sprained, but she didn't care. Adrenaline had taken over.

*~*~*

He tried to stand up once more, but Jason finally remembered the gun in his hand.

The last thing he remembered before darkness took over was a burning pain in his stomach.

*~*~*

She didn't remember where she had learned to kick open the door, but she did.

The first thing she saw was Jason standing by a bloodied and unconscious Sweets, holding a gun that was aimed at the psychologist.

In that second, she finally understood why her sister would kill to protect her loved ones.

She fired the gun without hesitation.

Point blank.

The bullet struck Jason in the chest and sent him falling to the floor.

Not even bothering to check on the drug addict, she ran over to Sweets, falling to her knees next to him and rolling him onto his back.

The wound in his stomach was the most severe, but his arm was obviously broken, he was covered in deep cuts and bruises – from the table, probably – and his nose and mouth were both covered in blood.

First aid had never been her strong point, but she ripped off her jacket and pressed it over the bullet wound.

*~*~*

He found the door already kicked in and ran in with his gun drawn, worried as to what he would find.

What he found was a dead body by the door, and a frantic Sammy trying to keep Sweets from dying from exsanguination.

He quickly pulled out his cell phone and dialed 911.

He didn't know what he said, but he was pretty sure there were death threats involved.

*~*~*

Alan Abrams had been an EMT for 2 years. He rarely saw anything worse than a broken leg or concussion.

When he and the other paramedics ran into their house, carrying a stretcher, the first thing he noticed was the extreme amount of blood on everything. The second thing he noticed was a federal agent practically guarding the body of a young man who was struggling to breathe, and the blonde who had practically thrown herself across the injured man in an attempt to stop the bleeding.

He quickly ushered the others away from the dead body and to the one who was still alive.

He assessed the injuries quickly as he put an oxygen mask over the man's mouth. Bullet wound, potentially fatal. Shattered radius. Various other puncture wounds. Broken nose.

He gave the kid a 15-20% chance of survival.

*~*~*

They had to drag her away from him. She fought like hell, but a federal agent and 4 paramedics were much stronger than her.

She knew she was about to have a panic attack, but the rational part of her brain had been taken over by the part that was telling her to start screaming at everyone for taking her away.

The paramedics must have been used to this. They ignored her and left her with Booth, who had to hold her back so that she wouldn't kill the paramedics.

She fell to her knees, sobbing hysterically, as Booth held her back by her arms.

It wasn't fair.

*~*~*

Everything was completely dark. He couldn't see or hear anything. The only thing he was aware of was the pain radiating through his entire body.

He prayed for Sammy, despite the pain.

*~*~*

She gave her report to the police but she couldn't speak.

She was also pretty sure that she ended up ripping off her bloodied clothes and handing them to the CSIs, leaving her standing there in a tank top and panties.

Booth escorted her upstairs and the only thing she had enough common sense to wear was pants, which she realized all too late were Sweets' too.

She fell to the ground sobbing, unable to do anything.

Booth had to carry her downstairs like a small child.

*~*~*

The drive to the hospital was agonizingly slow and when they finally arrived, it took threats to the nurse by Sammy and Booth using his badge to gain access to the Trauma Ward.

When they finally got there, Sammy was on the verge of another breakdown at the sight of Sweets being prepped for surgery, as the doctors struggled to stop the stomach wound from bleeding.

She didn't feel like running anymore.

She turned and ran, out into the hall, then the lobby.

She hadn't run in years, but exercise released endorphins – another useless fact from her sister – and she just had to run somewhere.

The rain started to fall as she slowed down, blocks away, then fell to her knees, crying hysterically.

It wasn't fair.

*~*~*

**A/N: **Next up… well, right after this is where the prologue takes place.

It's taken me 2 ½ months, a lot of support from my friends (Love you, Bruce!), dozens of sleepless nights and half a bag of strawberry bagels, but I'm so close to being done that I can feel it in my eyeballs!

Sorry, too much caffeine.

I wrote this entire chapter while listening to Geek In The Pink by Jason Mraz, if only for the irony.

Anyway, please review and I'll post the epilogue ASAP!


	16. Epilogue: Carry Me Through

**A/N: **I literally have an hour to write this epilogue… here goes nothing. (Sad tear with realization that this is the end of Life Support)

*~*~*

_And if I had to crawl_

_Will you crawl too?_

_I stumble and I fall_

_Carry me through_

_The wonder of it all_

_Is you see me through._

_~Crawl (Carry Me Through) – Superchick~_

*~*~*

_The Next Day…_

"Is this the family of Lance Sweets?" the doctor asked.

Sammy jumped, waking up. She had fallen asleep in the waiting room, sleeping on Booth's chest. The FBI agent had turned into the older, overprotective brother she never had. She knew that he thought she was annoying at first, but after the incident with Naomi, she knew she had gained the agent's respect.

"Yes, that's us." She heard Brennan reply, and sighed. They were all turning into the normal sort of family she always had.

She looked around, figuring out where everyone fell into place.

Booth was her older brother, the one who would risk anything to protect his family. Brennan was the sister-in-law, even if she didn't realize it. Angela was the older sister who loved treating Sammy like a doll, but could give great advice. Hodgins and Wendell were the older brothers who always got in trouble, but who always dragged her into it. Zack was the baby brother who everyone did anything for. Cam was basically the mom, keeping everyone in line. And Sweets… he was the little brother, not as young as Zack, but who everyone still took care of.

And she was the girlfriend who had ended up part of the family.

"He's waking up." The doctor said. "One of you – but only one," he said as everyone stood up "can go in there."

"I'll go." Sammy stood up. "I'm the reason he's in there. I owe it to him."

She didn't stop to listen to what the others had to say before she followed the doctor down the hall.

She never did like hospitals, but knowing that the person in question was going to live gave her that much more hope.

The ICU was freezing as she walked over to the bed where the psychologist lay. She sat down in the chair next to the bed, slipping her hand into his, watching his eyelids flutter, and then finally open.

"You're a moron." She said as Sweets' eyes flew open. "You know that?"

"Hi." He muttered, his voice raspy.

"You're lucky this is a really good hospital. The EMTs gave you a 15% chance of survival."

"I always beat the odds." He whispered.

"That's why I love you." She smiled, leaning over to kiss him.

The nurses suddenly rushed in and the two of them sat there, blushing, as they realized the kiss had increased his heart rate.

Both of them bowed their heads as they listened to the nurses reprimand them, promising they wouldn't try anything again.

Sammy watched the nurses walked away before she continued to speak, "We really beat the odds on these things. First it was that possessed cat you tripped over when we first met, now getting in trouble for kissing."

"It's not fair." His voice was getting stronger.

"Life isn't fair. You just have to a cup of coffee and fight your way through. Eventually, everyone else will be fat and old and you'll be living the high life drinking coffee in some condo in Miami.."

"Where'd you get that quote from?"

"My sister. Who else?"

He laughed weakly. "Nice."

She leaned over and kissed him again, smiling as his heart rate didn't increase. Neither of them heard the door open, as Sammy was practically climbing on top of Sweets and was focused on other things…

"Sammy!"

The voice snapped the two out of their own world. They looked up to see Booth and the squints standing in the room, all amused.

"I can explain." The blonde stuttered, climbing back into her chair. "He, uh… I… I have no excuse."

"You do that again and you're both grounded." Booth said, mildly sarcastic. Sammy blushed and Sweets just laughed.

"Yes sir." She muttered.

"Good girl, Shorty." Booth responded, smiling.

"I'm not even that short!" she sputtered, in obvious denial.

"That's what they all say." Sweets said happily.

"Yeah? Well… shut up!"

The others just laughed as Sammy just blushed.

"This is why I hate you people." She muttered.

"You don't hate us."

"That's what they all say."

The laughter that filled the room finally made her smile.

She looked over at Sweets, and, blatantly disregarding everyone, leaned over and kissed him again, not caring anymore what anyone think. He was hers and she was his.

There wouldn't ever be an argument.

*~*~*

**A/N: **OH MY GOD! I'M FINALLY DONE AFTER 3 FREAKING MONTHS! (Does happy dance) I LOVE YOU ALL! My eyeballs were going to explode if I got any more excited.

Anyway, only a 12 hours before I can see my boyfriend and before exams. I'm looking forward to seeing my boyfriend but the only point of exams is so that I can play with Hot Wheels in class.

Tell me how I did, because I'm spazzing here. XD

Thank you, various people who read this. I'd like to give a shout out to Greytune, who gave me the most support, Bruce, because he's my brother and I have to, and Vinnie, because he's my BF. XD

I love you all.

With love,

Bones.


End file.
